VP: Apple would rather close iTunes Store than pay additional royalties

It's been said before, but...
Amazon MP3:
0 DRM
Cheaper
Compatible with everything

Hmm lets see, everyone boycotts for a week. If the record executives don't get the message that the market will not bear the burden any longer, then hit em with a two week boycott ...etc, eventually they will fold. They just don't get how pissed people are getting, time to let em know.

I'll wait and see. If the price goes up 6 cents per tune -- I.E. exactly as much as they would need to -- then yeah, fine. But if they take the opportunity to raise the amount even more -- I mean, it's not like there's overhead to the overhead -- then no, I'll take my business elsewhere (amazon.com, emusic, real CD's, etc.).

Unfortunately the only ones this will benefit are the publishing houses that own the rights. Artists generally do not own their publishing rights, they usually only get a small percentage and sell the rest off for money to live on. As to album sales, a known artist is lucky to get 50-75cents per album sold (we will not get into returns here). This kind of thing does NOT help the artists. Musicians make their money from merch and touring. the $20 you pay for a cd all goes to the label. the money collected from public performance (radio, tv etc...) goes to the publishing co, collected by ascap and bmi, whatever percentage is due then goes to the artists. yes I'm an ascap member and ex-signed artist.

From the UK store tracks are GBP 0.79 which today is US$ 1.41

I think they are getting enough from us already! Moving our price to to US$ 1.06 would be cool.

This is another desperate power-grab from an industry that just refuses to learn from its mistakes.

The US$.99 price point has been proven to work very, very well and Apple takes an appropriate cut of this, just as CD distributors and retailers took a cut of those sales. At the other end, the artist takes a small cut, in between, the record label takes the lion's share. So why is this increased royalty coming out of Apple's share?

DRM another label invention that Apple is taking the heat for. When the labels insisted on DRM, they handed Apple a massive copetitive advantage, then turned around and bitched about it while simultaneously refusing to allow Apple to remove it!!! Instead, the labels are screwing the consumer, playing amazon off against iTunes by offering an exclusive deal DRM-free content. This might appear that the labels are encouraging competition, but instead, they're offering favoured players a competitive advantage - gone are the days of CD when you could buy the same product from multiple vendors.

At this point, Apple should be seriously considering cutting these chumps out and funding its own record label.

Greedy Greedy C__kSuckers are what the music industry is.

Therefore there are the newsgroups ;0)

There is not a chance in hell apple will shut down their music store.
If they close down the store, ipod sales will be hurt badly. No way, not gonna happen. They will figure out some way of making it work for all.

Nothing but a bluff, and a painfully obvious one at that.

Why are all of the blogs, INCLUDING TUAW, using this mis-leading headline? It should be that Apple would rather close iTunes store than operate at a financial loss!!!!!!!!

Norway:

I agree that DRM sucks. It should be gone.

But your legislators - and many of the folks who make posts referring to those legislators - continually seem to ignore that you can remove DRM from iTunes music. Burn it to a CD, then rip it back to your library,

I know it sucks, I know it is a hassle, but my point is that the playing field is not as horrifyingly bad as you make it out to be. I admit, I'm not well-versed on what's going on inside the EU's bureaucracy, so forgive me if I'm mistaken or oversimplifying, but are any of your representatives going after the record companies with as much fervor?

Explain it all to me, please.