Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman responded angrily to Steve Job’s comments last week about “greedy” record labels by suggesting that they should get a share in the iPod revenue.
Bronfman argued that some songs should cost more, and some less. These days it's common for an iTunes music store user to pay only for the songs they want, rather than the 'old' idea of paying for the whole album. This creates a whole array of 'problems' for the music labels who have seen an obvious a dip in revenue.
The easy solution is to have artists create CD's containing only hits, or you could do what Edgar at Warner does, and demand a share of profits in the device that has kept the cost of new music down, which we think won't happen.
View: Article @ engadget
View: iTunes Music Store
Bronfman argued that some songs should cost more, and some less. These days it's common for an iTunes music store user to pay only for the songs they want, rather than the 'old' idea of paying for the whole album. This creates a whole array of 'problems' for the music labels who have seen an obvious a dip in revenue.
The easy solution is to have artists create CD's containing only hits, or you could do what Edgar at Warner does, and demand a share of profits in the device that has kept the cost of new music down, which we think won't happen.
View: Article @ engadget View: iTunes Music Store
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These big companies make me laugh.
As someone on Slashdot pointed out, this is comparable to Shell (for example) demanding a cut of all the profits made by Daimler/Chrysler companies simply because they provide the fuel that runs them! Its laughable!
The recording labels have shown NO desire to innovate and push the industry forward - they are the absolute LAST people who should take a share from companies like Apple, and Creative who have devloped these players and helped bring in so much more money for the music industry.
Greedy pigs.
greedy pigs indeed
Owners of iRivers, Creative Zens, etc should definately look beyond their hatred for the other brands, to back the people who make their favourite players and fend off the greedy music industries!
UPDATE: Also why are they adding all these forms of copy protection to CDs? If you're buying the product why are they limiting its distribution? It seems they're punishing the loyal consume, where someone can download uncopyright protected data for free and have better means of redistributing than people who legitimately purchased it.
Why?
It's Apple/Jobs' fault that the music industry is even in this position. Jobs is the one who caved to their demands with the iTMS. No one else was willing to let them charge insane prices like $1 a song, for poor quality music with strict DRM. Everyone else was content to watch the music industry die or be crippled to the point where they'd have no choice but to get a clue and figure out that there's no way in hell I'm paying $5000 to fill my 5,000 song player.
$1 is insane? Sure the quality could be better (even though some songs I have bought are now 192kbps AAC which is almost the same quality as a CD to your ears) but $1 for a song that took a great deal of time to write, record and market isn't much.
Last edited by 34036 on 26 Sep 2005 - 12:46
So in other words 'there buying the good songs and not the crap we use to fill albums anymore'
Well said Bronfman!!
Take that, RIAA.
I maintain that there's a more or less fixed amount that the average consumer is willing to spend on music every year. When you can buy one song at a time, this encourages you to buy songs from CDs you wouldn't have purchased normally... since you aren't wasting $12 to get the one good song that you heard on the radio, only to find out the rest of the disc sucks.
The thing is... there is no cost of reproduction or delivery with digital music. It's 100% old-fashioned profit (minus the bank's little transaction fee). So it's hard to justify these inflated prices.
The other problem is... legal or not, devices like the iPod weren't created so that you could spend $5000 filling them with 5,000 songs. They were designed for people who already have huge collections of music on their computers - much of which came from friends or P2P networks.
So the consumer now wants more music. We want it in bulk. It's so cheap, or even free to reproduce... And so easy to distribute. I think the music industry is going to have a very hard time getting people to buy more music than they normally would. The only way you might do that it is to release a lot of new music that's worth buying.
However, they can make consumers happier (and less likely to pirate) by giving them what they want....
By lettting consumers pay a fraction of the current cost, so that they can buy in bulk.
I wouldn't say that there is NO cost, but the cost is just different. Remember that there are costs associated with maintaining the servers, bandwidth costs, etc. These are not insignificant, as anyone who has even run a small web site can tell you.
And maybe record companies should pressure the artists into doing this aswell.. gone are the days when people fork out cash for nothing..
Personally I still have a few grand to reclaim that I spent on absolute rot back in the days where you needed to buy the album to hear what was on it
Sickening... I wish there was someway of removing these company figurehead CEO's and starting again with others on realistic salaries with some control over their greed. Won't happen, but would be nice.
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa
For sure ill use it in the future.
Deadly sin greed is.
Steve: The Recording Industry is greedy.
Recording Industry counter: We want more money.
This is awesome.
-Spenser
Buying a single instead of an album has the exact same effect.
lol!
The RIAA Are really starting to push the limit. im starting to wonder what else they'll come up with...
When CD's first came out here in NZ they cost $34 and what do they cost now? $34 for a good new release or $24 for an older one. CD's have been around for at least 10 years now and production and manufacturing costs have come down so why hasnt the cost of a CD full of music? Most of them are just remixing or redoing an old song anyway so it isnt like you have to pay for their own thoughts or 'intellectual property'.
The music industry needs to get with it and drop the price of music. THAT is how to stop piracy of music with 90% of the people who download it, therefore they will sell more copies and by selling a higher volume they can then make more money. But I guess thats too difficult for them to understand.
This efectively means the end of the monopoly of media distribution for record companies. Before it was a one way only between the record company and the consumer who bought the CD (who at most would "distribute" it among his close friends and relatives); now anyone who buy a CD can "re-distribute" it to wider audience of internet "friends" and not so much friends.
This is why they are so afraid of digital music and this is why they are so interested in tightening DRM schemes to stop this kind "illegal" (in their definition "I own the only rights the distribute"
So good riddance to record companies. Give music back to the musicians, and take it away from CEOs with MBAs.
Just because you use the device to listen to music doesn't mean they should get money from it. Holy crap! It would be like TV makers having to give some of their profits to ABC/NBC and HBO. We use it to watch TV but the cable channels don't deserve to cut into TV makers profits. It just doesn't make any sense at all.
The latest CD I bought was Stellastarr*, their new CD. Not only can I not listen to it in my computer but I also can't rip it to my computer with iTunes to listen to in my iPod. Why not? Well because they put copy protection on it that makes the CD skip when trying to listen to it. They did include some software I can put on my computer so I can actually listen to my CD but why should I have to? I bought the damn CD and I want to listen to it in iTunes without having the CD in my computer. I should have that right I bought and paid for the CD. If this keeps up I will never EVER EVER buy another CD again, I'll get music from iTunes or not at all. Screw the record companies.
/rant
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