Apple vs Music Industry on Song Pricing

[shamino]

- Even if we take your point that some of your friends are getting $8-10 dollars per hour, that's a yearly income of 16,000 to 20,000. Which is a wage group with not much disposable income.

I never argued this point.

I'm in complete agreement that raising music prices on those with the lowest incomes is going to encourage piracy (or reduce sales without an increase in piracy, depending on how honest you think people are.)

I simply disagree with your tying of this to minimum wage legislation.

Most people in the 13-21 age group would fall into this income bracket. So, you've got to ask yourself how effective a price increase would be to pull more profits from this group?

Most of this age group are kids living with their parents, so their expenses are also much lower.

I got along very well on $400/mo when I was living with my parents (and I bought plenty of music then as well). Today, when I have to pay for my mortgage, electric, gas, water, food, etc., it would be the same as being unemployed.

 

[~Shard~]

I got along very well on $400/mo when I was living with my parents (and I bought plenty of music then as well). Today, when I have to pay for my mortgage, electric, gas, water, food, etc., it would be the same as being unemployed.

Very good point, thank you. A lot of younger kids take things for granted for this very reason, and don't realize that once they get out into the real world, and have mortgages, bills, etc. to pay for, as well as a little thing called responsibility, things are quite different.

 

[Epicurus]

Maybe this is off topic a bit, but...

If you've been following the rumors about the video iPod, the iTunes Movie Store, and all the stories about downloading movies, has anyone considered how this might be influencing the music industry? If Apple is positioning itself to push into the handheld video market, then iTunes audio might get pushed to the back burner (or so it might look from the music industry's point of view). Especially if the movies are sold through the Music Store frontpage. Seeing how Apple has been asked to share iPod revenue, it looks to me like the music industry sees the iPod as a part of its own empire rather than a piece of Apple's. If Apple where to restructure the iPod line to emphasize video, the music industry might see that as a direct threat rather than a simple evolution of the iPod as a product.

Anyway, the name "iPod" never struck me as implying audio or even photos. It always seemed to be a more capable device.

 

[peterjhill]

If the labels pull out of iTunes, that does not mean I will go out and buy CDs... Many of the musicians that I buy now are able to sell direct to iTunes... Thievery Corporation, for example, have their own label.

Wouldn't that be great if the labels pulled out, artists started working directly with Apple, the same way independent artists do now, and labels did not get a single cent of the sales...

Apple may not be a label, per se, but it has distribution and marketing... to of the main functions of a label...

Screw Sony and pals

 

[Seasought]

Wouldn't that be great if the labels pulled out, artists started working directly with Apple, the same way independent artists do now, and labels did not get a single cent of the sales...

As long as Apple doen't fall into similar expoloiting habits that seem to stereotype labels I guess so...sorta sounds like Apple is becoming a label in its own way.

Time will tell? Not sure about this one.

I agree that increasing or adding different prices for different songs would send more people off to P2P to download stuff for free (or at least try to).

 

[cobra]

iTMS Price tiers

I would agree to pay a diferent price for diferent songs only if the price structure was set up to charge for song lenth. I will pay more for longer songs, but I wish I could pay less for shorter songs.
It might not make sense to charge less for short songs, not profitable, due to credit card companies. There could be a mechanism that allows you to pre-pay $10 or $20 and future purchases will be deducted from the credit on the account. something like the pre-payed cards you can buy at many stores.
With a setup such as this they could also allow us to choose any given song and offer diferent bitrate encodings. 128, 192, 320. a lowl bitrate will cost less and a high bitrate of the same song will cost more.
Song length and bitrate? I guess it all adds up to a per Megabyte price structure.
Do you think this bussiness model will keep the greedy moguls and the costumers happy?

 

[hulugu]

I would agree to pay a diferent price for diferent songs only if the price structure was set up to charge for song lenth. I will pay more for longer songs, but I wish I could pay less for shorter songs.
It might not make sense to charge less for short songs, not profitable, due to credit card companies. There could be a mechanism that allows you to pre-pay $10 or $20 and future purchases will be deducted from the credit on the account. something like the pre-payed cards you can buy at many stores.
With a setup such as this they could also allow us to choose any given song and offer diferent bitrate encodings. 128, 192, 320. a lowl bitrate will cost less and a high bitrate of the same song will cost more.
Song length and bitrate? I guess it all adds up to a per Megabyte price structure.
Do you think this bussiness model will keep the greedy moguls and the costumers happy?

In short: No. The music companies don't care about bandwidth, song length, or quality, they care about profit. So, it would be in their best interest to charge $1.99 for a Top-40 song that is around two minutes long, this means lots of profit and lots of plays on radio.
Now, Apple cares about bandwidth and would like to charge per song size (either because of length or quality) but Apple is more interested in simplicity and consistency because they believe—correctly, I think—that consumers will be more likely to buy from something with predictable pricing.
I actually think the current Apple system is best because if nothing else everyone is unhappy, consumers, labels, and Apple. When everyone is unhappy, everyone has made concessions. It's an odd way to look at it.