10/16/2007, 4:20pm, EDT
Tuesday, October 16thApple lowers iTunes Plus pricing to $0.99
Apple is dropping the price of all its iTunes Plus tracks and expanding its catalog, company chief Steve Jobs confirmed in an interview. Although previously suspected, the new policy will reduce the cost of an individual DRM-free song from $1.29 to 99 cents, putting them at the same price as copy-protected tracks for the first time since iTunes Plus was introduced in May. The move is not expected to change the price of albums, but should take effect across all international iTunes stores no later than tomorrow. Both American and Canadian shoppers have already reported discovering the cut-price tracks in their respective online stores.
Sales of iTunes Plus songs was also set to expand beyond the catalog of major label EMI, Jobs said. Smaller, independent labels have also begun to add unprotected versions of their songs on iTunes and should increase in number over time. Which labels had agreed to make the change were unknown.
The Apple chief did not explain the price drop, though the decision is widely believed to be a competitive step that places Apple back into direct competition with other DRM-free stores such as Amazon MP3 and the Zune MP3 Marketplace. Many of these stores began selling their non-DRM tracks after Apple but started with prices at 99 cents or lower despite the added piracy concerns of easily copied files.
Update: claims about iTunes variable pricing were outdated. We apologize for any potential confusion.
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No?!! SUE!!!!!
Just kidding. ;) This is great though. I'm glad they're doing this.
(yeah I know flying meat was first... I couldn't pass it up!)
erm, no. That solution works for no one.
No matter how much the labels want variable rate pricing (and how much they are led to believe Apple will go along with it), in the end, Apple toes the line of the consumer on this issue.
So far, what we have always see, is that Apple may appear to intially go along with a label's demands (i.e. higher prixing for iTunes Plus tracks), yet eventually the label shoots themselves in the foot, and Apple gets back to the way things should be.
In this case, iTunes had variable prixing for iTunes Plus tracks, and then the major labels got together to help set up the Amazon store, with lower prices, for DRM tracks -- Apple used that, in order to push them being able to lower prices themselves on iTunes Plus tracks.
The end result -- Apple still sells hundreds of millions of iPods, and all the major labels get less, from the reduction of the pricing.... and while the Amazon store marks a potential competitor to Apple's iTunes Store, since it provides iTunes compatibility, it just drives more customers to buy more iPods (and guess what the top music players Amazon sells, are? iPods -- http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/172630/ )
Apple wins, no matter what.
Oh, and that new effort by the majors to offer music players with free access to music libraries (i.e. rental music). Doomed to failure, as the only player they won't support : iPod.
Morons. (as usual)
Also, I think it's amazing that people think musicians will starve without the labels. This has to be the most successful piece of propaganda and doublethink ever perpetrated on the public. Labels have - since their inception - been almost exclusively about taking financial advantage of the artist and ripping off the consumer. There is no need for the labels anymore. They are middlemen that no longer serve any useful purpose in this day of easy access to mass communication. The smarter musicians and groups are already cutting out the labels and living far happier and more productive professional lives while actually owning the music they create and maintaining creative control. About the only people that will be hurt by the death of the labels are the Britney Spears and Kevin Federlines of the world. Far as I'm concerned, the world will be better off without them.