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| Written by Tim | |||
| Tuesday, 20 September 2005 20:20 | |||
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The runaway success of online music ventures such as the iTunes Music Stores have left many wondering how the music industry would react. As of April 2004, music executives have seen the success of the stores, and are rubbing their hands together with glee. Job's original vision of 99 cents a song and $9.99 for an album didn't last long, with the price of albums spreading out to $11.99 and $14.99 in some instances. Then, late last month Infinite Loop covered the impending storm: music industry types have started pointing their fingers at Jobs, alleging that he's only in it for himself, and that his expectations are essentially irrational. Jobs has fired back:
"If they want to raise the prices, it means that they are getting greedy," said Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs. "If the price goes up, they (consumers) will go back to piracy and everybody loses." He added, "Theft is bad," and the Buddhist joked that "You dont want to burn in Hell." It may not seem like it, but it has been more than two years since the launch of the iTunes Music Store, and that alone has the music industry brimming with hopes for price-adjustments. They also don't buy Jobs' argument that a price increase will result in more piracy, but probably not for the reasons we might assume. I've long been of the conviction that piracy is not nearly as large of a problem as the RIAA makes it out to be. The "losses" tossed about are undeniably trumped up in the service of political aims (P2P war, the DMCA, etc.), and the industry isn't losing money to casual piracy, but organized crime ââ¬â? crime that generates black market profits via consumers purchasing knock-offs. The executives sitting at the big table intimately know their own bottom lines, they know how much they exaggerate their loses, and they know how utterly sweet it is to charge $10 for music sans physical production costs, only to turn around and expect $2 for a phone ringtone to boot. I wish the music industry's problems were my problems. That's how good they have it, and almost everyone else knows it, too. This is, after all, the same industry found guilty of price fixing. Jobs is right. They are greedy. But they don't fear casual piracy. Most people don't mind paying for music, and those that pirate it typically aren't buying much music, anyway. If the music industry is getting BS on pricing, it's all the proof you need to see that they don't fear casual piracy. They've seen the online machine work, they've seen people drop $200 or more for portable music players, and now they want ââ¬â? nay, expect ââ¬â? more. written by Ken "Caesar" Fisher found on arstechnica.com
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