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Apple to End iTunes Music Store Uniform Pricing Model?

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Apr 12, 2001
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MarketWatch reports on a Wall Street Journal article saying that Alain Levy, CEO of EMI Music, expects Apple to end the one-price-fits-all pricing in the iTunes Music Store within a year, increasing prices for popular songs and cutting prices for music by unknown artists. Levy reportedly discussed the issue with Steve Jobs, although the details of those discussions were not given and it was not claimed that Jobs made specific statements about iTMS pricing himself.

From a Levy press conference:
There is a common understanding that we will have to come to a variable pricing structure. The issue is when. There is a case for superstars to have a higher price.
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Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2005/11/16/apple-to-end-itunes-music-store-uniform-pricing-model/
I don't know if there is a case for superstars to have a higher price. Superstars should sell more product and thus make more money but Lyle Lovett's latest CD will cost as much as Usher's (I don't know who is popular today) down at BestBuy
 
What a pile of pants!

Good reason to find even more great unknown 'uncommercial' tunes and boycot manufactured crap!!! What's the bets illegal downloads will be up?
 
This would like a price increase for me, as I normally buy new songs. Don't know if I'll still buy as many songs as now then.
 
The music industry is pathetic.

Looks like I will just wait and buy "the popular" music from the "biggest artists" after it is no longer popular and drops in price.

And you wonder why limewire and P2P is so popular.

My vote is for Apple to create it's own recording studio (under the iTunes Originals section) and pay the artists more and woo all the artists away from the money grubbing studios.
 
Sigh.

Hope people keep posting (and posting more) about really good "unknown" artists that didn't have their hand in this and are going to make less (per song, hopefully more overall).
 
I don't have that much of a problem with variable pricing in theory. It's still better to pay $1.50-$2.00 for a single song I like than to buy the whole CD for $15-$18. I do feel like they need to offer a decent discount for buying the whole album on iTunes, though, and I think they really need to get on board in offering higher quality downloads (192 Kbps with free updates for previously-purchased songs).

However, I have a bad feeling that the price hikes are going to far outweigh these supposed price cuts, hence raising the average price for songs substantially. This is just a way for them to disguise it.
 
Complete crap!

I don't understand this reasoning. If a popular artist sells one million songs at one dollar, they make one million dollars. If a less popular artists sells one thousand songs at one dollar, they make one dollar (yes, I know not all of that dollar goes to the artist, but I'm generalizing).
How is this not fair? The popular artist will still make more money! This is just pure greed on the part of the record industry.
 
may be i could understand that old songs were cheaper since the music industry no longer need to recover marketing costs, however it doesnt make sense that any song is more expensive than they are now, they are already too expensive and not good value for money compared with the physical CD (that is not compressed, has no DRM restrictions and comes in a nice little box)
 
phonic pol said:
Good reason to find even more great unknown 'uncommercial' tunes and boycot manufactured crap!!! What's the bets illegal downloads will be up?
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I agree. Too bad Apple doesn't own much/if any of the content being sold on iTunes Music Store... I think Apple should start it's own record label and bypass the likes of the greedy record labels.
 
This is not fair. Superstars are going to get more money, great. But what about the lesser known independant bands? They are the ones that might need that extra bit of cash to keep touring etc. Maybe now 50 cent can bathe in champagne and put out another crappy movie thanks to his money.
 
Tommyg117 said:
This is not fair. Superstars are going to get more money, great. But what about the lesser known independant bands? They are the ones that might need that extra bit of cash to keep touring etc. Maybe now 50 cent can bathe in champagne and put out another crappy movie thanks to his money.
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He stopped that. The champagne was drying out his skin.
 
strange explanation

I saw somewhere very strange explanation from some representative of "music industry", it was something like: "It cost much more to produce good music than to produce the one nobody likes. We just want our investment back!". OMG, of course - if the music is so good, you will sell millions of the same track instead of hundreds tracks of bad music, this is the way you can get your money back and much more. They are just greedy, trying to maintain status quo of CD market - one hit and the rest is about nothing so you have to buy CD to get 1 song for 15$..now compare it with iTMS where you can get the same song for .99 and you see they are loosing money. But not because of unified price, it is because until now they didn't have to care about the quality of the music on CDs they were selling.
 
I am not sure what they mean by superstar, but there are two statements there, the superstar statement and the most popular. Most popular my not always be a superstar. So are they going to set price based on the precieved number of downloads for a new song. It will be easy for existing since they know what is hot. Right now My Hump is the most popular song on itunes, but I would not say Black Eyed Peas are superstars.

Think about this, as the download counter goes up so does the prices!!!
 
I really don't have a problem with this, and its not a foreign concept, like many people are treating it.

Traditional CDs and DVDs work the exact same way -- new releases and more popular items are more expensive than older, less popular CDs and DVDs. Hence, the bin of $ 5.99 CDs/DVDs at the store.

Why should digital music and movies be any different? (And, why aren't you people out bitchin' about the traditional CDs/DVDs cost structure if this model will be so "evil")

In addition, this rumor says nothing about "superstars" getting more money. It says "more popular". Supply and demand. Number 1 song would cost $1.99 when its first released and then probably drop to 79 cents when no one wants it no more (just like traditional CDs)

Back to Limewire I guess
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Limewire will be gone within the year, just as Grockster just went. Sorry, but the industry is rightfully winning cases against people who steal.
 
Greedy bastards!

The record companies are already saving manufacturing costs, shipping etc. Do less and wanting more than you would pay by purchasing a CD. THEY STILL DON'T FRIGGEN GET IT! Of course people will go steal again. LAME!!:mad:
 
They just don't think we get it.

This isn't about a fair pricing structure where old/less popular music costs less. You better believe that they will not charge less than $0.99 (US) for even the least popular song in the catalogue. This is about charging exhorbitant rates for Top 50 songs, and anything that begins to sell well.

I can't believe the music industry doesn't believe we understand this.

Prediction: Piracy will increase - and it will be a real shame, because it is the artists who continue to suffer.

I really believe that the only way out is for artists en-mass to stop making agreements with record labels, and for everyone to go indie.
 
Record Companies... Oil Companies...

It's so easy to do whatever you want when you can define your own price. Record companies, oil companies, government, tomatO, toMAHto...

I can only hope that more people will seek out the "cheaper," better alternatives to the higher-priced "same old crap."

Heck, I'll sell you MY stuff for a nickel!
WOOP!
 
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