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Jobs vows to fight "greedy" music companies

updated 06:55 am EDT, Tue September 20, 2005

Jobs takes on music world


Apple's CEO Steve Jobs vowed Tuesday to for price increases on the iTunes music download site and warned that such a move would encourage piracy, according to Reuters. "Jobs, speaking to reporters before the opening of the Apple Expo in Paris, acknowledged that some record companies were pushing him to raise the price of each song download, currently 99 cents on the U.S. iTunes site." Jobs said that record companies already make more profit by selling a song through iTunes than on a CD because of the manufacturing and marketing cost advantages. "So if they want to raise the prices it just means they're getting a little greedy."

The report said that Jobs will try to resist the temptation to raise prices. "We're trying to compete with piracy, we're trying to pull people away from piracy and say, 'You can buy these songs legally for a fair price.' But if the price goes up a lot, they'll go back to piracy. Then everybody loses."


by MacNN Staff

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 industry, digital music/video

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  1. addisonx

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2002

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    09/20, 08:05am | report spam | Reply |

    Next Headline

    "Apple CEO finally relents to music executives--signs agreement to raise prices while being held by the feet from the Eiffel Tower"

  1. paulc

    Junior Member

    Joined: Aug 2000

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    09/20, 08:41am | report spam | Reply |

    Idiots!

    IMHO, the buck a song scheme was a rip off... in that one was getting for it for essentially the same price as a song on a CD, BUT was of considerably less quality (kinda like the distinction between hearing it on FM and hearing it off a CD or even vinyl).

    Actually, what ya should say is that it makes a very compelling justification to acquiring the music outside of paying the record companies.

  1. climacs

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Sep 2001

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    09/20, 09:08am | report spam | Reply |

    Hunter S Thompson

    Time to dredge up this one:

    "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

  1. iomatic

    Mac Elite

    Joined: Oct 1999

    0
    09/20, 10:57am | report spam | Reply |

    GO!

    ...

    That's ballsy. And quite awesome! Jobs has something no Republican, pandering, whiny little CEO MBA dork has: guts.

    Go man, go.

    ...

  1. ZinkDifferent

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2005

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    09/20, 11:21am | report spam | Reply |

    predictably...

    Yep, it only took one post for some moron to post the obligatory "iTunes is a rip-off, and Apple is bad" message, entirely missing the boat that Apple's the most consumer friendly DRM, and that without Apple you'd be paying $2-$3 a song, or have 'album only' downloads.

    While it's certainly warm fuzzies for your Jesus sandals to be talking up the 'perfect world' where everything is free, nothing is DRM'd, and everyone loves another, we happen to live in reality -- and I for one am glad that Steve Jobs is in a position to stand up to music labels, and not roll over whenever they want to raise their prices.

  1. scotty321

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 1999

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    09/20, 12:54pm | report spam | Reply |

    Music Industry

    Folks, I live in Los Angeles. Every single executive in the music industry is a greedy, selfish, egotistical a-hole. They represent the worst of our society.

  1. ronjamin

    Baninated

    Joined: May 2002

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    09/20, 04:09pm | report spam | Reply |

    I Love Gnutella

    They should be lowering the price, not raising it. I always use the analogy of Tiny Tim's Tiptoe Throught he Tulips. I think that a fair price for this song is 5¢, Who is listening to it? No one. What about flash in the pan bands?

    Then there are songs that sell forever, like the album "Dark Side of the Moon". This should charge a premium price. Let the MARKET work. THe problem is that the music industry is a gargantuan monopoly of greed, idiocy, and cutthroat pricks. In the end, they are getting what they deserve.

    If they charge more than $1 for a tune, guess what? Gnutella will take iTunes place. Guarantee it!

  1. porieux

    Baninated

    Joined: Mar 2001

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    09/20, 04:23pm | report spam | Reply |

    99 cents already too much

    WAY too much for DRM low quality compression. there is no incentive not to buy a cd except for convienience-at-all-costs

  1. xianman

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Feb 2005

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    09/20, 07:13pm | report spam | Reply |

    re: predictably...

    Perhaps it only took one post for the obligitory "iTunes is a rip-off, and Apple is bad" message to show up since there may be some truth to it. I do not blame Apple for the problems of DRM, nor the price of their music. The problem stems back to the labels.

    Music was not always a commodity to be bought and sold. Musicians have always and will always make their money from performing in front of live audiences. Record companies came about with the invention of recorded music, and have existed mostly as a promotional machine for musicians. Record companies made their money from selling and promoting records, and musicians made the bulk of their money from live performances.

    Now along comes the internet and people can easily and freely exchange music without the aid of a recorded medium. The labels are a dying breed and they know it. Greed is the final nail in their coffin.

    Having said all of that, I would still like to see labels exist as in the independent type, as they act as great filters for the mass of music that exists in this world. I remember when mp3.com came about and the c*** was so high there one could drown in it. Also sites like last.fm are great in filtering and finding great new artists.

  1. LouZer

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2000

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    09/21, 08:15am | report spam | Reply |

    'greedy" music companie

    Right, its the music companies that are greedy. But Jobs and company, no, their not greedy, they're working for the betterment of society.

    Oh, and for the 'it costs too much' argument, I'd like to point out that while the quality is less, the convenience is more, both in 'get it now' quality, as well as 'buy what you want, let the rest be" quality. Who wants to buy a whole CD of a flash in the pan, or Tiny Tim?

    The critic always ignores the plusses/minuses of the cost of anything. The 'not worth 99 cents' argument is based on just one notion "Its DRM'd and less quality, and the industry doesn't have to pay to make the CD, so it should be 5 cents" or some such rot. As opposed to looking at all the factors. Yes, that's the minuses. But the plus is that you only have to pay for what you want. So rather than spending $10-15 on a CD, you can get two songs for $2. Which also affects the record labels, who's business and costs once revolved on the belief that they'd get you to buy the whole CD, not just one or two songs on it. Then you got the convenience factor. Don't you think that's worth anything. Hear a song, go "Wow, I want that!" and be able to have it in 5 minutes? Unless you live above a record store, you'd have to waste $10 in gas just to get to the store to spend $10 on the CD.

    Then there's the cost of running the business. The conversion of the music to digital formats. Storage and server costs (you know those things just don't run themselves, you need a large server farm to make sure the music store doesn't go down, or half the files get inadvertently deleted due to a bad hard drive). Bandwidth costs (a LOT more than your $40 cable modem fee - my company was going to rent a partial T1 line to connect our office to the main headquarters, before they found out it was $1200 a month, and that wasn't even a full T1) are huge as well. Plus someone wants to make money on the deal (trust me, if there was no profit ability, no one would be doing this).

    So how exactly would all of these factors work out for 5 cents a song?

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