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Apple Pressuring Music Labels Over Participation in Amazon's 'Daily Deal' Program

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Apr 12, 2001
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Billboard reports that Apple has been pressuring music labels over their participation in Amazon's "Daily Deal" program that has allowed them increased exposure and sale pricing on Amazon's MP3 download store. Apple's primary objection has been Amazon's push for one-day exclusives on new releases offered through the program, an offering that has placed Apple's iTunes Store at a disadvantage for early sales of some major releases.
Sources say that iTunes representatives have been urging labels to rethink their participation in the Amazon promotion and that they have backed up those warnings by withdrawing marketing support for certain releases featured as Daily Deals.
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The report notes that the impetus for Apple's complaints came from the release of Mariah Carey's "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel", released one day early by Amazon and priced at $5.99 as part of the Daily Deal program last September. For its part, Amazon has reportedly backtracked on the program by allowing labels to participate without requiring the one-day exclusive and thereby hopefully avoiding the wrath of Apple. Apple has apparently continued to complain, however, about the marketing agreements that are part of the Daily Deal program.
"They are . . . diverting their energy from 'let's make this machine better' to 'let's protect what we got,' " says a major-label executive who has been following the situation.
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According to sources in the industry, the relationship between the labels, Apple, and Amazon remains "fluid", with some labels refusing to participate in the Daily Deal program while others have opted to take advantage of the publicity available through Amazon for releases for which Apple has not offered prominent publicity in the iTunes Store.

Article Link: Apple Pressuring Music Labels Over Participation in Amazon's 'Daily Deal' Program
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/03/apple-pressuring-music-labels-over-participation-in-amazons-daily-deal-program/
iTunes representatives have been urging labels to rethink their participation in the Amazon promotion and that they have backed up those warnings by withdrawing marketing support for certain releases featured as Daily Deals.
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Sounds like blackmail to me...

But that's what they've got to do to have another insanely great day at Apple, Inc.! :p
 
I'm slowly starting to dislike Apple now... and that makes me sad :(
 
Island Dog said:
It's called competition Apple, get over it. They seem to be losing it more and more everyday.
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It's not true competition. The labels are price discriminating against Apple to prop up Amazon MP3.

Yet, they want Apple to promote the same albums and artists on the iTunes Store. You can't blame them for wanting the same deal.

Universal Music Group in particular offers ridiculous prices to Amazon (and no Universal Music Group and NBC Universal are not the same company). I've bought all sorts of albums from their artists on Amazon MP3 for $5.99 and lower. The same albums are $9.99, $12.99 and some even $14.99-$17.99 on the iTunes Store. That's a huge difference.

It's all negotiating tactics. The media companies are like the mafia. You don't survive unless you have something to hold over someone's head.
 
True irony

MacRumors said:
"They are . . . diverting their energy from 'let's make this machine better' to 'let's protect what we got,' " says a major-label executive who has been following the situation.
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Somewhat ironic, coming from an executive whose industry has been doing exactly that for decades. Anybody else remember the 80's "home taping is killing music" campaigns? Or how hard the majors fought against digital distribution? Or, even better, how those same majors are now looking to squeeze money out of broadcast radio? Pot, meet kettle.
 
Is Apple that paranoid over losing market share to Amazon? It's some good old competition, the guy with little market share (Amazon) is trying to do something different in order to attract customers from the big guy (iTunes). How about instead of crying and complaining like a baby Apple should perhaps offer something similar to Amazon. Work with the labels to get something similar into iTunes.
 
3N16MA said:
Is Apple that paranoid over losing market share to Amazon? It's some good old competition, the guy with little market share (Amazon) is trying to do something different in order to attract customers from the big guy (iTunes). How about instead of crying and complaining like a baby Apple should perhaps offer something similar to Amazon. Work with the labels to get something similar into iTunes.
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Agreed, Apple is being lame about this.
 
jaw04005 said:
It's not true competition. The labels are price discriminating against Apple to prop up Amazon MP3.

Yet, they want Apple to promote the same albums and artists on the iTunes Store. You can't blame them for wanting the same deal.

Universal Music Group in particular offers ridiculous prices to Amazon (and no Universal Music Group and NBC Universal are not the same company). I've bought all sorts of albums from their artists on Amazon MP3 for $5.99 and lower.

It's all negotiating tactics. The media companies are like the mafia. You don't survive unless you have something to hold over someone's head.
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This seems to be the key point that people are missing. Apple would LOVE to offer these prices, if the labels allowed them to. Apple has constantly tried to bargain down media prices with constant resistance from the labels/studios. As you've said, this isn't fair competition from Amazon, this is price discrimination from the labels.
 
Apple is starting to sound like a bunch of babies... Cry me a river!! :mad:

"It's not fair!! Amazon gets to sell MC's album for $5.99!!!" Blah blah blah...
 
The two main things that bother me about Apple are:

  1. Apple's reliance on legal action as the main method of maintaining their competitive advantage.
  2. Steve Job's hypocrisy, especially when it comes to Apple's recent lawsuit against HTC where he was quoted as he didn't think other companies should steal their ideas.
That's a pretty different tune from what Steve Jobs was singing in 1996.

"At Apple, we've always been shameless about stealing ideas we thought were cool." -- Steve Jobs in the 1996 PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds.

Little bit of a double standard there Steve?

azentropy said:
Is it just me or is Apple's strong arm tactics starting to bother other people as well?
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Sounds like APple is trying to strong arm competors out of the market. Same stunts intel pull with its CPU to keep AMD from gaining ground.
Some of the same stunts MS pulled to gain market share. I kind of hope apple gets nailed hard for this one.
 
Sad, Apple don't like competition.

They'd better be careful because Apple are going down the same road as microsoft did - which lead to them being sued for abuse of market position. This is exactly what Apple are doing now - using their market position to influence the music industry.
 
ShiftyPig said:
So the brands sold at Walmart are "price discriminating" against my grocery store? What an abortion of a post.
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:D
That was a perfect example! Thank you! It's really nothing they can do against that. Unless someone comes in and sets a price floor. But I doubt that will happen. I've seen new albums going on sale for $3.99!! Hopefully no one tips Apple off about that...
 
Seems to me like the labels have consistently been pricing singles lower on Amazon than iTunes, and in a way that's fairly arbitrary. The vast majority of 1.29 songs on iTunes are priced at .99 on Amazon. This could possibly be part of the reason for Apple pushing back on the Daily Deal.

I mean, this type of thing probably goes on all the time in brick/mortar retail as well, it just isn't covered.
 
Apple sues Walmart, Bestbuy and others over patent infringement

As reliable sources report, Apple is going to court in an effort to stop ongoing patent infringements committed by Walmart, Bestbuy, and other stores. Sources claim the issue is related to Patent #38a234 "A system for offering goods and services in exchange for payment", obtained by Apple in early 2003. Apple-Spokesman John Doe states that "This patent, a result of Apple's amazing, innovative, ongoing research efforts, clearly describes a system where one party (called the 'client') shall obtain goods or services from another party (called 'Apple') in exchange for financial compensation. What's truly magical about this system is that this exchange is not limited to cash. Credit cards are accepted as well! The patent describes example implementations (i.e. "online-shops", "retail stores"), and it is obvious that Apple has been running real world applications of this patent for a long time now. It is therefore inacceptable that competitors like Walmart try to steal Apple's innovations by doing the same."
It is rumored that Apple is currently working on licensing options for their shop-concept. Apple's lawyer Foo Bar says "We will be offering a fantastic deal. Millions of shops of all sizes around the world will be able to obtain a license for our shop-concept, Apple will provide all the innovation, for a modest fee of 30% of a shop's turnover".
 
ShiftyPig said:
So the brands sold at Walmart are "price discriminating" against my grocery store? What an abortion of a post.
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Are the brand manufacturers (labels) allowing Walmart (Amazon) to sell their products at a lower price than your grocery store (Apple)?

Also, a terrible analogy on your part. Groceries can be bought in bulk from the manufacturers in different amounts at different prices. A copy of digital file is not purchased in bulk.
 
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