guzhogi
macrumors 68040
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Apple Pressuring Music Labels Over Participation in Amazon's 'Daily Deal' Program
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Don't forget, while Mac OS X is probably the biggest user of Objective-C, Objective-C can be used on other OSes.
i cant believe how many people on this site ignorantly bash companies without even taking time to consider the dynamics of each case. this is a music industry mob move to regain the thing they made most profit on. distribution. they rob and steal money from artist and purchaser alike via contracts. they charge for packaging and breakage and variances when most music is distributed digitally. apple is probably the first company big enough to get an explanation when they asked the big boys "Why"? and then they made them change stuff around to suit the market. the music industry has NEVER EVER done this before. they never move towards the pace of technology. they think that the only thing that makes them sales is appeal and the amount of spending money the consumer has. they keep getting caught with their pants down and now apple has had the upper hand and it's been better for the consumer. people havent been able to legally get music this cheap en masse before itunes. people that are dumb enough to gripe with apple about drm dont know that drm is the music label's idea. it protects Their interests, not apple's. The industry will shoot itself in the foot to help amazon gain ground on apple so it can re-negotiate the terms in it's favor with it's largest distributor. this is all about power/control over distribution. if it wasnt for apple's logical questioning, we would still be getting charged 17 bucks for an album with 9 songs and 3 intros.
its nothing wrong with being ignorant..... its something wrong with speaking out your ignorance.
its nothing wrong with being ignorant..... its something wrong with speaking out your ignorance.
They can't. The only reason why Amazon offers it is because those record comapnies gave them this exclusive. Thus, the response from Apple.
Apple puts in a huge amount of work into setting up the iTMS and marketing for new release albums. This info is also sent out to potential customers well in advance in emails and visibility on the music store front page. The record companies are using this to get there product marketed for free while giving lower pricing to Amazon in hopes that customer will go there to buy. The reason is solely to increase marketshare to an Apple competitor in hopes that they cangain better negotiating power over Apple and in turn raise pricing across the board. What the article did was raise awareness to other music buyers that hey, take a look at Amazon before you buy that new release at the iTMS since it can probably be found much less on their Daily Deals. This was done to drive consumers away from Apple. Hell I had no idea about the Daily Deals on albums but I do now.
Apple is saying enough is enough. We spend all of this time and effort to market your product and provide high visibility for release and yet you offer it cheaper elsewhere on the day of release. Well if you keep doing it we will no longer spend the time to provide you visibility. How can anything be wrong with this.
The issue is not so much with daily deals on the amazon store. Its Daily Deals, on the date of release. If at a later or random date, albums were offered on a daily deal there should be no issue.
Normally in business you sell at a high price when somethng is new and demand is high. You then sell for less, when demand is low to drive sales.
Ask yourself, what other reason would a manufacturer have to sell their brand new product, at a a much lower profit, on a distributors site that does not have the highest sales volume?
Yes Amazon is cheaper but the mp3 codec is inferior in quality to AAC. So there is a reason why it is less anyway.
j26
macrumors 68000
Is it my imagination, or was there not a hooha about the record labels wanting variable pricing a couple of years ago, but Apple said no?
Maybe that's coming back to bite Apple now. They confined themselves to a straitjacket in pricing structure, and a more nimble competitor is now nibbling at their heels.
Maybe that's coming back to bite Apple now. They confined themselves to a straitjacket in pricing structure, and a more nimble competitor is now nibbling at their heels.
Its not an issue about the record companies profit. You are switchng this around. Your argument was that why can't apple just suck up the 30% and sell for nothing or for less than 30% and compete with Amazon.
They can't.
The price that is offered to them in the daily deals, from the record companies, is for less in terms of cost than what Apple is charged. Even if Amazon is selling for cost Apple still cannot compete. Its impossible.
Apple has a reason to sell at cost if it wanted, its to sell hardware. What reason would Amazon have to sell at cost? Right. None. So its highly unlikely that they are selling at cost. In fact, I wouldn't be suprised if Amazon gets a bigger cut than Apple does during these daily deals.
So as you say above, the record comapnies are making a lower profit at Amazon. Why would they want to sell at a lower profit? Its not for awareness or increase sales of their product. Its to funnel who sells their product and reduce the stranglehold of the consumer friendly pricing and terms they have under the iTMS.
Apple did.
That is why you have tracks as high as $1.29 and as low as $.69.
Don't forget that the record comapnies have been favoring Amazon all along to get out from under the grips of Apple to get another major player.
- The big 4 gave Amazon DRM free first and for a lengthy period of time, I think over a year.
- They insited on variable pricing, with Apple at contract negotiation, increasing the price by $.30 for DRM free songs while the songs were already DRM free on Amazon at the existing .99.
- They gave Amazon Exclusive pre iTMS-release Amazon Daily Deal Specials & Pricing.
- Now we are dealing with just special release daily deal special pricing.
Amazon out prices itunes.
For long, I have been a huge supporter and follower of itunes but enough is enough. Amazon continues to sell the same music as itunes at the same quality but always for a cheaper price. So many times I have compared prices of itunes albums with Amazon albums and Amazon, the majority of time, continues to price their albums lower than itunes. I bought the entire self titled album, The Fray, for $0.99 on Amazon as a promotion whereas itunes would never have a sale like that on their store. So many times I've bought classical and alternative albums at itunes for full price ($9.99) only to be drastically disappointed that Amazon is selling the album much cheaper. I don't know what gives but I hope Amazon continues to negotiate these promotional deals with music companies more as their customer base continues to exponentially increase. Well done Amazon-jump aboard itunes.
For long, I have been a huge supporter and follower of itunes but enough is enough. Amazon continues to sell the same music as itunes at the same quality but always for a cheaper price. So many times I have compared prices of itunes albums with Amazon albums and Amazon, the majority of time, continues to price their albums lower than itunes. I bought the entire self titled album, The Fray, for $0.99 on Amazon as a promotion whereas itunes would never have a sale like that on their store. So many times I've bought classical and alternative albums at itunes for full price ($9.99) only to be drastically disappointed that Amazon is selling the album much cheaper. I don't know what gives but I hope Amazon continues to negotiate these promotional deals with music companies more as their customer base continues to exponentially increase. Well done Amazon-jump aboard itunes.
At this point, Apple can kiss my a**. I am so tired of their policies. Back during the 90s and the early to Mid 2000's we all complained about Microsoft, but now Steve Jobs is off his rocker, and Microsoft is looking like a saint these days..
From this day forward, I shall be buying all my music on Amazon.com unless it's not available... And hahaha to Apple, the Amazon Mp3 downloader automatically imports your music into itunes after you download it, although I am sure a future itunes update will break that feature...
Maybe I'll just switch to a different media player too while I'm at it..
From this day forward, I shall be buying all my music on Amazon.com unless it's not available... And hahaha to Apple, the Amazon Mp3 downloader automatically imports your music into itunes after you download it, although I am sure a future itunes update will break that feature...
Maybe I'll just switch to a different media player too while I'm at it..
Actually yes they are. Walmart and Costco strongarm negotiate with their suppliers to make them give them a better deal to allow them to sell for cheaper than their competitors. So actually it is a fine analogy, the fact that bulk purchases can be made notwithstanding.
No one is disagreeing with any of that.
The issue is whether it is fair for the record companies to give Amazon that good a deal when Apple has worked so hard to created the market and promote the labels. Apple is simply saying that they don't like being treated unfairly and they're going to stop going out of their way to help record labels that go out of their way to scr#w Apple.
Seems perfectly fair.
If the record companies gave Apple the same deal that they're giving Amazon, Apple could meet Amazon's prices - and there'd be no reason to complain. As it is, Apple is paying the record company $7 or more for the album you purchased from Amazon for $0.99. Is that fair? Obviously not.
That sounds like Apple needs to renegotiate the way they do business.
I'm not reading through the whole thread, but this damages the free market how? This isn't an argument, clearly I'm just not seeing what the issue is yet.
In my limited understanding, this seems like typical business muscle going on. Each side is leveraging their strength to strong arm the other, looking for the advantage themselves. This one puts Apple at a disadvantage, while the record companies would argue that Apple already did the same to them.
Part of me just likes seeing Apple get a bloody nose after walking around punching everyone else in the face for the past few months, but that's just me. 😉
It's pretty wild that you people can't understand what is going on. The monopoly in this situation is not Apple, it is the studios. And pricing their product differently for different resellers is the only thing close to a legal problem.
Frankly, I hardly care, let me know when Apple or anybody starts selling some music in a decent format online, not the mp3 crap. 24/96 or better, please. Then I'll start being a customer. Otherwise, I'll stick with those shiny optical discs.
TennisandMusic
Guest
Boo hoo...Apple's crying because there's competition. Maybe Apple should go back to the Apple History Book of the early 90s and see that the same crying and acting like a baby and threatening their business partners (aka: biting the hand that feeds you) almost put the company out of business.
I swear Apple never learns when it comes down to business practices. I'm not talking about product development.
-Eric
I swear Apple never learns when it comes down to business practices. I'm not talking about product development.
-Eric
JAT is referring amplitude and frequency resolution: 24 bit depth, and 96 khz.
iTunes songs are 16 bit (I think), and 44 khz. 128kpbs is the bit rate. CD's, by comparison, have a bit rate of 1,411.2 kbit/s! (yowza!)
The guy on that website can't tell the difference between a 128kbs AAC file and a CD. Either he can't hear the massive difference (in which case he'll be happy with his iTunes purchases), or he is listening on a device incapable of conveying the difference in quality of the sound.
For 99 cents, though, I'll take amazon's 256kbps mp3 or Apple's AAC. When I really love something, I go buy the CD to get that extra resolution.
You really think that Amazon could not use AAC if they wanted too? I am sure they offer it in MP3 to cover the wider range of devices. Amazon uses variable rate 256 kbps encoding. For all practical purposes, this is as good as it gets. If you need better you go with lossless format, not AAC.
So you don't read the thread, then complain that you don't understand the arguments being made. *Sigh*
<Wait for retort about being "too busy to read the entire thread">
Okay. Let's break it down for you.
When a monopoly -- the record industry -- practices price discrimination by giving unfair competitive advantage to one retailer over another it prevents the free market from working because that monopoly is pre-determining who the vendor of choice will be. THEY are choosing, not the consumer. It's not about Amazon wanting to give a better deal to the consumer, or providing a better experience -- it's literally the monopoly allowing Store A (amazon) to sell a product for 1/3 of the price of Store B (Apple in this cases). Store B cannot compete.
That's not the free market. That is vertical integration. At least with Wal-Mart they have bulk purchasing that enables their negotiating power. This is the record industry directly manipulating the market.
Do you understand how that's detrimental?
Now, Apple's response, obviously, is to use their muscle to get the playing field leveled in negotiations. That's one of saying what's happening. Another way would be to say "Apple's trying to get Amazon to stop the Daily Deal". I bet Apple would love to offer the Daily Deal, too, but it all depends on what information you want to leak out and what impression you want to give, right?
That this article appeared in Billboard magazine -- a record industry mag tailored to record industry execs -- gives you a pretty good idea of which side of the disagreement leaked the info. And it wasn't Apple.
So you have the record companies leaking this info to try to hop on the anti-Apple sentiment that is going around right now, to hellp leverage their negotiating position.
And no offense, but you are falling for it.
A lot of you folks talking about how much Apple sucks for this -- and there are things they do that are unsavory, no doubt -- but in this case, you are being played by a much of corporate thugs who want nothing more than to take you for your hard-earned cash, just like they did for the last 30 years.
So wake up. Your personal hatred or love for Apple and Steve Jobs is irrelevant to this argument. It is business, and the record industry are bad guys here, and they will have no qualms about ripping away the deals you think Amazon are so great for giving you the minute they feel Apple's lost enough dominance to do so.
clevin
macrumors G3
total bs, you guys forgot so quickly why NBC pulled out from iTMS last year?
because Apple controls the price and refuses flexible pricing proposed by the labels, which is exactly what amazon is doing!
unfair? not from labels, but from fanboys.
You're right, it's technically called collusion, where several companies band together and behave like one. The recording industry has been investigated for it several times over the past few years.
Thanks for the explanation! Perhaps next time when someone asks a question politely, and adds winky emoticons next to their light hearted jabs at apple, you could take the time to get off your high horse before replying.
See how easy it is to reply nicely? 😉
You're right. Once someone has said something, they can never change their mind, change their opinion, or change their stance. I mean, it's only been at least 14 years since he said that. Nobody changes in 14 years.
Furthermore, stealing "ideas" is a broad term.
Little bit of an idiotic post there?