Rotten Apple?

[DCBluesman]

The National Music Publishers' Association wants to see an increase in the royalty rates paid to its members for songs purchased through online music stores (the association wants the rates raised from 9 cents to 15 cents a track). Apple doesn't like the sound of this and is willing to shut down iTunes rather than raise the 99 cents a song price or absorb the higher royalty costs.

 

[gketell]

C'mon Lou, post the full details.

"Apple pays an estimated 70 cents of every dollar it collects per song to the record companies responsible for each track." Of that 70 cents, 9 cents go to the Music Publishers (who are doing absolutely ZERO to publish these songs so why do they need a raise??)

Add $0.06 more and it makes it less than $0.23 per song income to run the entire shebang: servers, internet bandwidth, man power, etc.

"Leigh [Phil Leigh, president of digital-media analysis group Inside Digital Media] says that research shows increasing the price of a track above the one dollar mark would probably result in an overall loss, since a drop in unit sales would be higher than the corresponding gain in revenue."

So Apple gets to raise the price 9 cents to pay people who are doing nothing and thereby price themselves out of the market. Would you do that?

GK

 

[leehljp]

Apple has been the one pushing Music and TV industry to hold prices down, to get rid of DRM, but for some reason Apple gets the blame.

I personally think the song writers and artists themselves should be getting the major portion of every dollar but that is not the case - the music rights industry is the real hoarder and they don't do much hard copy distribution anymore. They do the least but get the most of each 99 cent share.

Most of discussion deleted because it ain't worth the argument. Friends are more important. :biggrin:

 

[ed4copies]

I know NOTHING about this topic, but I do math well.

Now getting 9 cents
Want to get 15 cents

SIX cent raise
66% raise.

Even GAS hasn't gone up SIXTY-SIX percent!!!

So, is their request reasonable? I have NO IDEA!!!!!!

 

[bdonald]

Apple has been the one pushing Music and TV industry to hold prices down, to get rid of DRM, but for some reason Apple gets the blame.

I personally think the song writers and artists themselves should be getting the major portion of every dollar but that is not the case - the music rights industry is the real hoarder and they don't do much hard copy distribution anymore. They do the least but get the most of each 99 cent share.

Most of discussion deleted because it ain't worth the argument. Friends are more important. :biggrin:

Yeah, especially when we are using 21st century technology with 20th century business models. I was offered a couple of contracts back in the 80's/early 90's that could have put me in the hole, but the logic was, they were putting more on the line with production costs, pressing, dist, etc.... so it was ALMOST worth taking the chance. Nowadays, you have artists like Rik Emmett that are proving that it can be done with minimal costs, and showing just how much profit the record co.'s are making off of the artist. Just a reason for them to shift thier excuse as to why the artist isnt getting thier fair share. Granted, they are offering a wider audience, but that same audience could be achieved without them with some ingeniuity.

 

[jeffj13]

Apple has been the one pushing Music and TV industry to hold prices down, to get rid of DRM, but for some reason Apple gets the blame.

I personally think the song writers and artists themselves should be getting the major portion of every dollar but that is not the case - the music rights industry is the real hoarder and they don't do much hard copy distribution anymore. They do the least but get the most of each 99 cent share.

Most of discussion deleted because it ain't worth the argument. Friends are more important. :biggrin:

Perhaps they get the most because they take most of the risk?

jeff

 

[wolftat]

Even GAS hasn't gone up SIXTY-SIX percent!!!

Careful what you write Ed, you may be putting some ideas on the table that you don't mean to.

Apple may have right idea in stating that it will shut down their music end. If the folks wanting more money (for nothing) finds that they will lose more in the end, they may rethink their ways and stop being so greedy (we can dream). In the meantime, a one week boycott of all music purchases would show them that it can be a disaster to change prices again.

 

[DCBluesman]

My only point in all of this is that Apple, being the largest online distributor, is behaving like a spoiled child...or a near-monopoly. Essentially, play by their rules or they will take their football and go home. Fortunately, others (Microsoft and Amazon to name two) have their own footballs. I say shut 'er down.

 

[drayman]

I know NOTHING about this topic, but I do math well.

Now getting 9 cents
Want to get 15 cents

SIX cent raise
66% raise.

Even GAS hasn't gone up SIXTY-SIX percent!!!

So, is their request reasonable? I have NO IDEA!!!!!!

IT HAS OVER HERE IN THE UK ED.

 

[ed4copies]

IT HAS OVER HERE IN THE UK ED.

Nahhhh, the gas only went up about 20 percent. Your TAXES went up a couple thousand percent!!!:biggrin::biggrin:

 

[Mikey]

My only point in all of this is that Apple, being the largest online distributor, is behaving like a spoiled child...or a near-monopoly. Essentially, play by their rules or they will take their football and go home. Fortunately, others (Microsoft and Amazon to name two) have their own footballs. I say shut 'er down.

I have to disagree. If companies don't stand up to them it will spiral out of control. of course, go ahead and raise the prices and watch as the artists make less money.

 

[wdcav1952]

Does anyone know where I can buy some eight track tapes????

 

[rjwolfe3]

I have access to a bunch of old country ones if interested.

 

[wdcav1952]

Thanks Rob, but I was looking for some Counting Crows eight tracks. The guy at the music store acted like he didn't know what I was talking about! :frown::wink:

 

[rjwolfe3]

Should've asked for a 45 then silly.

 

[leehljp]

Perhaps they get the most because they take most of the risk?

jeff

But that is the point behind my argument, they - the music industry RIAA are NOT taking the biggest risk. No "perhaps" to it.

The creators should be getting the biggest piece of the pie - musicians first and writers second. In this case music distribution is far less costly in today's world than it used to be. "Promotion" in the old model was expensive but not today.

The problem with Apple is that they are judged and attacked on their size, not their model. It is their business model (and their software) that is successful. It has taken about 5 years for the RIAA and music industry to learn that tied up subscription models for music is not what consumers want.

Subscriptions models lock people into contracts that is money in the RIAA and Music industries pocket for a long term. The problem of subscriptions is that people want to listen to over and over and therefore benefit from "owning" it rather than renting it like a movie. A movie is something most people watch two or three times.

Amazon and the Zune (by MS's description) are direct answers to a successful business model, not Apple per se. RIAA and the big 4? of music have pushed and pushed "subscription" but it never worked. Apple's success (besides its software) is due to the business model. That business model is aimed at what will consumers will embrace and tolerate with prices in lieu of "free" internet downloads. The model is the .99 barrier. (I personally don't know what is wrong with $1.00, as I never have understood that psychology although I was taught it in college.)

Apple has been battling the big 4 and RIAA for the past 4 years on raising the prices and has been fighting the PR image that the RIAA and the big 4 have been putting out that Apple is the bad guy. Apple fought DRM and went public on it, the industry hated this. Apple still was bound by RIAA and big 4 legal contracts to include the DRM on their (Apple) sales. Then the music industry big 4, mainly Universal, started offering the DRM Free on Amazon and with Zune to break Apple's hold. Once broken, then they can kill the business model that keeps the prices at 99 cent mark. These guys are betting that they can keep people from going back to torrent bit like or the old napster model which will benefit NO ARTIST, musician or writer. The REAL culprit is the RIAA and Music giants, mainly Universal. Decrease their profits, not the real distributor.

Complain about Apple's model and label them as the bad greedy guys while giving the majority of the dollar to a group that does the least work of all.

. . . Lets see, Apple gets your blame as being greedy and you don't complain about Universal, Sony, EMI and (one other) and the RIAA for getting 40 cents out of the dollar. The writer writes, the musicians sing, Apple and Amazon distributes - BUT the big 4 + RIAA get the fat check. You complain about Apple, but not the fat cat middelman that does the least and gets the most - in this situation. I don't understand your logic. The big 4 and the RIAA are depending on this attitude to focus away from the real money eater.

$.99 is a major part of the business model. Take that away, go with $ 1.09, $1.19 and the old Napster model re-surfaces and the writers and musicians suffer.

 

[flyingmelon]

iPod?

Um, if Apple shuts down iTunes aren't they shooting themselves in the foot on all them iPod sales?

 

[gketell]

No, not really. You can already buy music from amazon and load it on your ipod.

The music industry is already gouging Apple. The same songs you get DRM free on Amazon are required to be fully DRM on iTunes unless you pay extra to have it removed. This isn't an Apple requirement, it is the music industry's.

Music industry needs to come to the current age. They are still stuck in the ancient realm of LPs. When we can get every song ever recorded for free they need to make it easy to pay "minimal" to get it rather than raising the price until people would rather still it than pay for it.

My humble opinion, of course.
GK

 

[Russianwolf]

I'm not all that surprised, I refuse to buy an apple product because of their business practices over the last 10 years or so.

First they got in a legal dispute with the Beatles record label over the Apple logo. The beatles and Apple came to the agreement that The beatles label would use it for music and Apple could use it for everything non-music related...... fast forward to a couple years ago and the debut of the ipod, the record label sued apple for breach and lost the right to the logo since apple could throw more money at the legal case.

Then a year or so ago they announce the iphone, which was already a product name owned by cisco for an internet-based phone from a compaby they had bought. They were in negotiations with cisco to use the name, but announced it before the negotiations were final. Again they threw a bunch of money at it to get their way.

Apple is simply a company that uses bad business ethics.

 

[leehljp]

I'm not all that surprised, I refuse to buy an apple product because of their business practices over the last 10 years or so.

First they got in a legal dispute with the Beatles record label over the Apple logo. The beatles and Apple came to the agreement that The beatles label would use it for music and Apple could use it for everything non-music related...... fast forward to a couple years ago and the debut of the ipod, the record label sued apple for breach and lost the right to the logo since apple could throw more money at the legal case.

Then a year or so ago they announce the iphone, which was already a product name owned by cisco for an internet-based phone from a compaby they had bought. They were in negotiations with cisco to use the name, but announced it before the negotiations were final. Again they threw a bunch of money at it to get their way.

Apple is simply a company that uses bad business ethics.

I know how you feel Mike. I have the same resentment for Microsofts illegally forcing IBM, HP, Dell and all other computer mfgs to use only Windows - before the government broke their monopoly. You know, its one thing to grow a monopoly from a good product that is better than all others - or at least all others fail because of their ineptness - but another to use your power to prevent sales of other company's products like MS did for a decade! And the justice dept. overlooked it for a long while.

The deal of going after Yahoo and attempting to throw all that money into it to compete against Google instead of creating their own and calling it "innovating" - Disgusting! And in the end, they only wanted one part of Yahoo and intended to sell off the rest which would have thrown many many people out of a job.

I share your "bad business" sentiments exactly - particularly with M$. This music business and computers has left a lot of people holding the bag. Many companies came out with music subscriptions for DL to computers and MP3 players and soon stopped. Many companies also came out with music purchase sites including MS and Walmart. People purchasing the "playsforsure" DRM were left holding the bag too when MS decided to change their Zune and orphan PFS. And the way that MS makes people purchase "points" to purchase music is in such a way that there is never an even balance - always to MS's favor! Unethical business practices abound and MS is not through yet! Now even Walmart is out of the music DL business and because Walmart was locked into MS's DRM - they basically have lost their music. MS stated several times they were in for the long haul. How many people will get run over in MS's long haul?

 

[gketell]

And let's not forget the poor slighted Cisco who uses every dirty tactic in the book to squash competition: buying the company and tossing it and its products out; marketing a "better product" that doesn't exist so no one buys the competitor's product and they go under; giving product away to stop a competitor's sale; "acquiring" competitor's product and reverse engineering it rather than relying on their own skill; having "production problems" to stop shipping when they are doing better than the stock market wants; shipping all the equipment that a customer ordered for a 3 year contract in one day when Cisco is doing worse than the market wants; etc (Cisco did all of this either while I worked for them (those last two really screwing their customers), or worked for their competitors).

I think it just boils down to big business doing whatever they think they can. We have wayyyy too many examples of it out there. Enron, anyone?

GK