Will Apple Raise iTunes Pricing?

[Kent Pribbernow]

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1223

"Apple Computer may be forced to raise song prices at several of its popular iTunes music stores next year, according to a report from overseas. Japan's Nikkei is reporting that record labels have been 'abuzz with talk about Apple's 2006 problem,' referring to the company's licensing renegotiations with record labels scheduled for next year. Specifically, labels have been pushing Apple to increase its current fixed a-la-carte pricing structure in the US, Canada and Europe, the report states."

This could be trouble for Apple, and possibly more online music services as well. $.99 is pretty much as far as I would pay for a simple 128kbps encoded track. If that price were to jump to say..$1.25, that's just not worth the money for me.

Your thoughts? :?

[Kent Pribbernow]

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1223

"Apple Computer may be forced to raise song prices at several of its popular iTunes music stores next year, according to a report from overseas. Japan's Nikkei is reporting that record labels have been 'abuzz with talk about Apple's 2006 problem,' referring to the company's licensing renegotiations with record labels scheduled for next year. Specifically, labels have been pushing Apple to increase its current fixed a-la-carte pricing structure in the US, Canada and Europe, the report states."

This could be trouble for Apple, and possibly more online music services as well. $.99 is pretty much as far as I would pay for a simple 128kbps encoded track. If that price were to jump to say..$1.25, that's just not worth the money for me.

Your thoughts? :?

[Macguy59]

I could also see them adopting a subscription model. The RIAA just doesn't get it.

[Felix Torres]

The reality distortion zone is mucho mojo; I say Jobs does it and justifies it by raising the encoding rate from 128Kbps to 160kbps. Or maybe he goes to 192kbps for $1.50. (gotta leave room for future price increases, after all.)
With increasing broadband use the D/l time won't be affected and the fringe benefit is that bigger files will fill the minipods quicker, producing even more new hardware sales.
Looks like a win-win to me.

Lock-in is beautiful.
Long live lock-in. :lol:

[Jason Eaton]

Originally Posted by Felix Torres

Lock-in is beautiful. Long live lock-in. :lol:

Just to make sure everyone is aware... it isn't just Apple but all music download services will be seeing the price hike or increased liscensing fees from the music industry. No matter what the player, or DRM.

[jlp]

DON'T BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU :evil:

I say StationRipper :twisted:

- It's legal 8)
- Free/trialware records 2 streams
- Registered ($15) records up to 600 streams 8)

4 minutes a song = 25/hr = 600/day x 2 streams that's 1'200 songs a day
600 streams = 360,000 songs a day = 10.8 mio!! songs a month

TO DEATH WITH ITMS & AL :twisted:

[Felix Torres]

Originally Posted by JohnSmith

Just to make sure everyone is aware... it isn't just Apple but all music download services will be seeing the price hike or increased liscensing fees from the music industry. No matter what the player, or DRM.

But the other vendors would welcome the price increase as a way to steer customers to the more profitable subscription services or tie the downloads to actual CD purchases as Amazon is reportedly planning to do.
(Buy a CD, get an instant D/L while you wait for the disk to arrive.)

In fact, some might choose to eat the increase to draw in more customers.
REAL did essentially that when they intro'ed their harmony tech, remember?

Different business models mean different impacts.

[Macguy59]

Originally Posted by JohnSmith

Just to make sure everyone is aware... it isn't just Apple but all music download services will be seeing the price hike or increased liscensing fees from the music industry. No matter what the player, or DRM.

He knows that but any chance to take a shot at Jobs and Apple . . .

[Felix Torres]

Originally Posted by byteme

He knows that but any chance to take a shot at Jobs and Apple . . .

You wound me, kind sir! 8)

I was just pointing out what any keen observer would already know; when life hands you lemons, you don't have to eat them raw, you can make lemonade.
Which is to say, fortunes are made by betting the opposite of the way conventional wisdom says you should:
In this case, if the herd thinks raising prices is bad, one should look for ways it might be something *good*.
I shouldn't have to explain that, given Apple's business model of making iTunes and the pod interdependent, it makes sense that the more money pod people sink into their Fairplay music collection, the more likely they will be to replace the pod with another pod.

And as long as the price increase is "forced" upon Apple, mr Jobs' reputation stays clean, no? He collects more money, gets a tighter grip on the installed base, and nobody blames him.
Like I said, its a win-win.

Its all just good business sense... :wink: