Apple in talks to bring Sony artists to iTunes
updated 07:50 am EDT, Tue September 6, 2005
Apple, Sony in talks
Sony said Monday it was from 15 Japanese record labels, but without a few major labels, including Sony. Apple, which sold 1 million songs in just four days, has already had an impact on other services and is enjoying increasing marketshare within the region because of its popular iPod. "The two companies are locked in a fierce battle in the market for digital music players, with Apple enjoying the upper hand over the struggling Japanese electronics icon. Now the two companies could set aside their rivalries to allow iPod users here to access Sony's roster of Japanese artists. 'We are negotiating with Apple over the download business and hope to expand our customer base to iPod users,' said Yasuhi Ide, a spokesman for Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2001
Now there's some spin...
"Set aside their differences", huh? How, exactly, does caving to the huge success of a big rival equate to setting aside your differences? What, exactly, is Apple giving up here (unless it turns out that they allow Sony to charge a fortune for their songs or something)?
Sony is in a nasty catch-22; hurt their artists (and their music business in general) by holding their artists back from the JiTMS in favor of their own store to support their hardware sales, or hurt their hardware sales by giving yet another reason to go iPod in an attempt not to miss out on sales at the iTMS.
Considering that a few artists already jumped ship to get on the iTMS bandwagon, I think Sony decided to think in the best interests of its content division instead of trying to prop up hardware sales.