Comments on: The Problem With Variable Pricing

By: More on Apple’s Billions: This Time, It’s iTunes « Tech News

More on Apple’s Billions: This Time, It’s iTunes « Tech News — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:29:45 +0000

[...] had an affect on Apple’s earnings recently. And as far back as May last year I wrote about the problem of variable pricing in the iTunes Store. Only a few weeks ago Warner Music Group announced the news (already completely [...]

By: More on Apple’s Billions: This Time, It’s iTunes

More on Apple’s Billions: This Time, It’s iTunes — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:33:54 +0000

By: Dack

Dack — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:47:59 +0000

I bootlegged my first song in years because I couldn’t find it priced under $1.29 anywhere… Amazon, iTunes, RhapsodyMP3… and it felt good. Not because I was blocking money from the artist or anything, but just because this is the first time I, who I consider to be pretty reasonable and passive, have demonstrated against the RIAA in my actions, even though they’ve never really ceased pissing me off.

As a musician, I think the last thing I would ever want to do is sign up with a major label. I know it’s blasphemy, and I sound like I’m on a high horse, but the cons have finally outweighted the pros on an undeniable level. ‘Cause if, by the grace of God, I generate a “hit”, it will be $1.29, it will be a flash in the pan, and the strings my bosses pull will alienate any fans that fell in love with my actual music. Either I futilely pursue mainstream success as if it can be a constant source of income, or I exercise creative control, meaning which my commercial failures will be blamed on me and I will be dropped. My label will own my unreleased second record and refuse to sell it back to me so I could do so myself.

I see it happen to artists I love every day and none of them ever seem to learn.

By: Will W

Will W — Sun, 31 May 2009 07:53:27 +0000

This is nothing other than a producer raising its prices to its distributors. The unfortunate thing is that the quality of the product, nor the expenses associated with producing it (aside from advertising) have not gone up 29%. So this is just one more example of the music industry over pricing lack luster product and wondering why people don’t like it. It still boggles my mind that I can go to the store and buy a DVD of a movie that cost 100M to make for $15, whereas if I want to buy that same movie’s soundtrack at a store, it will cost $17-20. The movie industry seems to be dependent and responsive to its consumer, although I see it starting to follow the same over-blown advertising trends and force-feeding that the music industry does.

When I was a kid the cliche in the music industry for any producer not wanting to hire a band was to say,”Sorry, you sound too much like so and so.” Nowadays not only do they want you to sound like someone else, they only seem to want one song that sounds like some other popular artist.

Pfff. I am completely opposed to pirating music, but as this article pointed out, if my choice is ridiculously over-priced tracks or acquiring it for free, there really isn’t a choice. Although since most of the music I like is older and not “popular” perhaps I will see the cost of my purchases go down. Yeah right. Never happen.

By: Jannis

Jannis — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:54:45 +0000

I find it hilarious that the removal of something costs the consumer in effect more: in order to cover the cost of making iTunes music available to customers DRM-free

By: Eddie_W

Eddie_W — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:05:54 +0000

For only $15/month, we bypass *all* of this nonsense by using the Rhapsody subscription service. For the 50 or 100 new songs and albums we download and listen to every month, we save quite a bit of money. Yeah, sure, the songs have DRM, but who cares? We can load the music onto three different computers and onto three different players (more than enough for our household).

By: Pakitt

Pakitt — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:34:18 +0000

If people stop buying 1.29$ tracks and get only the 99$ ones, the whole variable pricing effort of the labels would be useless.
But let’s face it – people *do* really want to hear *now* that latest hit from Britney Spears/Madonna/Lady Gaga/write here your own preferred artist – do they?
DRM free music is now available because people were not buying enough music online and were not buying CDs either, not because they were buying more music….