[opendtv] Re: News: NBC chief says Apple 'destroyed' music pricing

  • From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:46:37 -0500



John Willkie wrote:
> John Willkie, who hates to say anything that defends the creepy practices of
> record labels
>

If you are truly a Firesign Theater fan then I foregive you for some of your other shortcomings.

- Tom


I am sorry that you are unhappy with your choices vis-à-vis your cable
company.

Somehow, the Eagles thing brings up iTunes.  I smell a reality-distortion
field at work.  Has iTunes ever sold 700,000 copies in a week of an album by
a somewhat faded group without a recording contract?

But, the reason I resurrected this post from the ash-bin is more concrete
than that: I realized the irony.

Apple, for most of it's existence, existed solely because a small sub-set of
computer users wanted to pay them 40% or more over the market rates for
underpowered, fluky computers.  In other words, in a commodity PC
marketplace, some users saw merit in paying more for Apple computer systems.

But, when Apple acts as an intermediary between music consumers and artists,
Apple commodotizes something more personal than a computer: music.  Music is
personal to the listener (in most cases) and is personal to the
creator/performer (in most cases.)

I think the issue is Steve Job's penchant for control, not unlike his Next
computers that lacked a modem, floppy disk drive, option slots or the
ability to add them.  He knew best, and he sold a few thousand in a few
years.

I value certain artists much more than, say, tupac, whose content I wouldn't
listen to even if paid.  Yet, Steve Jobs says that all music content -- 100
hear old songs, 18 minute opi, the lasted release from Brittany Spears,
shall be the same price.

And, let me note the real absurdity: to get to the table with Apple Corps
and access to the beatles catalog, he has agreed to offer through iTunes
"enhanced audio" of Beatles songs for $1.39, not $0.99.

And, this "one size fits all, except for the beatles" pricing model is
offered as a virtue.  I guess when you can only get access to that unique
content by absurdly (people pay for content, not technology) raising your
price for CATALOG (old and moldy) content, the only thing is to say it's
part of your putative virtue.

Now, I'm not complaining too much about the pricing model.  I truly reveled
when I downloaded from Rhapsody Morton Subotnick's 'Touch' for $1.98 (about
40 minutes of electronic music) and I enjoyed paying $7.92 for Leonard
Cohen's first album.  I have yet to try to download the Firesign Theater's
third 'album.'  Maybe it's not available, since it only contains one 'cut'
per side, and they might think it's worth more than $1.98.  (My first copy,
in 1970, cost $2.19)

Salman Rushdie has a term for this type of intermediation offered as a
virtue.  He calls it "behalfism,"  when you speak on behalf of a party that
isn't there, who hasn't asked you to speak for them, and whose views you
don't really know.

So, Apple charges as much for it's computers as the market will bear (a true
free-market decision) but won't permit artists -- people with truly unique
content -- that same freedom. Do you truly think this is a virtue?
John Willkie, who hates to say anything that defends the creepy practices of
record labels

-----Mensaje original-----
De: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] En
nombre de Craig Birkmaier
Enviado el: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 4:23 AM
Para: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Asunto: [opendtv] Re: News: NBC chief says Apple 'destroyed' music pricing

At 9:21 AM -0800 11/6/07, John Willkie wrote:

Nobody controls what you watch, aside from you.  But, you blame others.
Boo-hoo. You have options; life is too short to blame others for your
choices.


You are correct that i decide what to watch. But you are wrong about the choices that I have and what I must pay for those choices.

I DO NOT watch the vast majority of channels that I am FORCED to pay for if I want the few channels that I do watch. As you say, I could just say no to all of them. But I cannot say - I only want to pay for what I am actually consuming. And I am subjected to advertising loads that are historically unprecedented.

As for the Eagles... They are a music group, not a TV show. The music industry has moved well down the path away from control by a few music conglomerates. Wal Mart is the biggest retailer of music in the country - they have the leverage to do deals like the Eagles release. By the way, Apple has had a significant number of exclusive releases for iTunes.

The reason that Some of the media conglomerates are opting out of using the iTunes store is that Apple refuses to play the differential pricing game,. They want to charge a premium for new releases to force people to buy bundles (at a premium) of stuff they don't want to get the content they do want.

The sad fact is that even at 99 cents the price of a song is at least double what it should be for everyone to make a decent profit. I guess that makes Apple a co-conspirator too...

And $1.99 to watch a TV show is more than adequate, when a movie rental costs $3-4.

At least the media conglomerates are starting to piss people off. As you say, the opportunity now exists to change the rules of the game. But the media conglomerates are not going to go down easy - they have too many advantages thanks to their friends in D.C.

Regards
Craig
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Tom Barry                  trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx  




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