Not content with the 65 cents or so they’re currently making off of every 99 cent download from the iTunes Music
Store and other online music retailers, the major labels have decided they want a bigger slice of the pie.
This really bugs me. The major music labels complain that illegal music downloads are doing irreparable harm to the music industry and when they have an opportunity to make legal downloads really attractive to people, they squander that opportunity for the sake of profiteering!
If anything,
legit downloads should cost less, not more (the industry could easily rake in more than the $300 million they made last
year if they dropped downloads to a price most people would feel comfortable paying), but the labels don’t see it that
way and are reportedly trying to renegotiate their agreements and up the amount they get paid every time someone
legally buys a song online.
When Apple launched the iTunes Store a while ago people raved about it and it soon became the favourite online music store by far. Now, rather than taking note of the tremendous success of the iTunes Store and dropping the prices to entice even more people (or even just leaving the prices as they are), the music labels want to strangle the industry.
So what will happen if the prices do go up? As one industry analyst said to CNN,
"People would go right back to stealing music". Exactly!
RSS – Posts
What do you think?