Ha! Your Shaolin-style greed is no match for my Iron Claw Obstinacy
The recording industry may blink after all in its battle with Apple to introduce flexible pricing to iTunes, the world’s best known and busiest digital music storefront. With their current licensing deals with Apple set to expire within the next two months, Universal, Warner Music, SonyBMG and EMI North America have been pressing the company to abandon iTunes’ one-price-fits-all model of 99 cents a song for a tiered pricing system based on artist and track popularity (see “Recording industry announces plans to screw up remaining business model,” “Who’s your daddy, Steve? Who’s your daddy? SAY IT!!!“). But Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who’s pretty much defined the rules of the digital music game, hasn’t exactly been amenable to their suggestions, dismissing them as idiocy and upbraiding the industry as greedy for even making them in the first place (see “Record labels greedy? What tipped you off?“, “Greedy? Greedy!? I’ll show you greedy“). And now, it seems the intransigent Jobs has finally won out. According to the New York Post, the record labels have largely thrown in the towel, ceding the issue of variable pricing. In the end, even an industry hardened by years of CD price fixing was unable to bend the mercurial Apple CEO. “I think if they’re throwing down for a street fight,” Gartner analyst Mike McGuire told the New York Times last year, “they may have picked somebody who’s as good or better at it than they are.”
We need to check the bearings on Sonny Bono’s coffin rotisserie. Perhaps its time to consider swaping them out for the ‘Extreme High Spin’ variety. Guys, his Tachometer is pegged way off the scale. Way above the RPM Red line and he’s planted way to close to a major fault line for this to be safe for any of us.
Skuttle butt has it there’s been a flurry of psychic’s channeling concerns from dead Mafia Bosses, regarding the laundried music legacy they left behind.
As for walking into Steve Job’s dark alley; Momma taught me you should never fight with anyone crazier than you are. They simply don’t care who gets hurt or how much wreckage is caused and they tend to like the sight of blood.
Ya, Steve Jobs…the new ‘Man in Black’.
Like my last date told me, ‘be afraid, be very, very afraid’.
“…unable to bend the mercurial Apple CEO.”
Geez JP! You sound like you wanna suck him off. Steve Jobs is not god. He’s great, but c’mon.
Besides, non-variable pricing is retarded. Any fool who buys off of iTunes will still pay $2 for new/popular songs and will probably be convinced to buy crap songs they have put off getting if they go to $0.50.
Another company is going to make it happen some day. Steve is holding back progress isn’t he?? Basically just asking for competition to offer the record companies what they want right?
> Basically just asking for competition to offer the record companies what they want right? < But there is no competition