iTunes Price Hike To $1.29 For Hottest Songs

Los Angeles Times:

The world's largest music store, Apple's iTunes, plans to boost the price of many hit singles and selected classic tracks to $1.29 on April 7, breaking the psychological barrier of 99 cents in what could be the first big test of how much consumers are willing to pay to download individual songs.

Although the date for higher prices has not been publicly announced, Apple has been notifying record labels it will go into effect on that date, industry executives said.

Read the whole story: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[TruEngineHearing]

I was a music recording engineer working way up in the chain back in the day. We fought hard for the best sound possible at all times, so it is horrific to hear the highly compromised sound that's sold by iTunes and Amazon and others. It's all sonic crap compared to what was once available for the public to buy and hear.

Ok, if it was lossless with no DRM, then maybe $1.29, but MP3 tech is so very, very lame that even at .99 cents is not worth it. That's over 11 bucks for 12 tunes with compressed, masked, psycho sound. Puleeze!!

[loki]

never understood that concept , but many businesses do it. when times are bad , sales are down, people are not buying, the raise the prices... Ive noticed from food and gasoline, to hotels and rental cars, they are all raising their prices. So when you can sell enough to make the profits you desire, you raise the prices and sell even less?? That just doesnt seem to make much sense if you ask me. Then again, I guess these are all Ivy Greed educated professionals making these brilliant decisions. I know Ive been going with the biggest bang for my buck, and its not paying more for anything.

[deckard70]

I wouldn't mind paying the higher $1.29 if it meant the song was provided in lossless. Or maybe 320 kbps. But to charge a higher price and deliver nothing more for the money is a rip-off.

[lilykudrow]

Tough one for the music fans like me :(
Pricing raised in the iTunes Store :

Read more: http://techunits.com/content/1344/pricing_raised_in_the_itunes_store

[loki]

Guess thats why so many people use Lime Wire. I wont, I dont want the viruses, hacks or someday get busted, but I know many who do.

[Mekales]

I'm just curious... so if an artist releases a new album or single, will it be in the 69 cent catagory for a week or two until it becomes popular? Then move up to 99 cents at that point? Then become $1.29 when the song reaches the top-o-the-charts? I mean, look how many highly popular groups or artists often release their sophmore album, it's no where near as good as the previous album, only for them to disappear thereafter...

Just wondering who and how the pricing will be determined...

[frantaylor]

You do know that the record companies control the pricing? Apple just collects the money and delivers the song. In many cases they make almost nothing, all the money goes to the recording label.

[BitterInPA]

As a long time Apple user and investor, I'm disappointed in the change. I have seen my iTunes Music Store purchases fall off, mostly due to finding better bargains elsewhere. Case in point, you can often find entire albums on sale at Amazon for $5, 256 kbps and DRM-Free. The top songs are only 79 cents. Sure the purchase process is a bit clunky, but Amazon's download app sends the songs to iTunes so it is easy enough.

http://www.amazon.com/MP3-Music-Download/b/ref=topnav_storetab_dmusic?ie=UTF8&node=163856011

[martiniandabotoxchaser]

There is a price point where the illegal downloading market will rise again. Apple and the major labels better be careful not to tempt the genie out of the bottle.

[blueknight41]

one word .... limewire..... well two lol

[BitterInPA]

Stealing is bad karma. The only time I fall back to LimeWire is when a song is not available in the US.

[BittenByAZebra]

Raise prices 30% during a recession? How cool is that? I've had to cut my downloading music budget. Guess it'll be cut again. Perhaps other companies will follow suit and raise prices because, heaven knows, there are folks out there with nice bonuses that need to be spent...

[frantaylor]

Maybe you should stop purchasing crudely formatted data packets and buy real goods with your money instead.

[Bouddicca]

Again, long live indie rock.

[Maka]

Once I read the full story, it's not nearly as bad as the headline implies. Here's a portion from the full article:

"The company long resisted pressure from the music industry to allow flexible pricing, arguing that it would inhibit sales. Apple changed its tune in January, however,announcing that it would begin selling music at three prices: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29, based on wholesale costs set by the labels.

In exchange for flexible prices, the digital tracks will be offered free of anti-piracy software, enabling the buyer to make unlimited copies and play the songs on any device, which is not currently possible."

I'm fine with this since I'm happy to pay for music I like. And I love that the anti-piracy software will be stopped.

[Doc0976]

You do realize that Amazon and other sites offered DRM-free music and still don't have to hike their prices? I have boycotted iTunes for some time now and have been a loyal Amazon MP3 downloader. They have cheaper rates and MORE SELECTION...and it's all DRM-free!!!!!!!!!!!

[VegetableMan]

"They have cheaper rates and MORE SELECTION...and it's all DRM-free!!!!!!!!!!!"

just like my friends' cd collections!

rip, burn, repeat...

[jabreal00]

I also have used iTunes very infrequently over the past two years because of Amazon. The only cache that Amazon has is all of its files are MP3 format. However, iTunes interface and selection blows away Amazon's. If Apple can get most if not all of it's songs DRM free, I'll start using iTunes much more frequently.

[Maka]

Yep, I do realize. But I don't like how Amazon sets up their store, and I'm not a fan of their political leanings.

[Sundialsvc4]

The music industry will make plenty of very-good money ... just as they did when a jukebox sold music-plays for less than a nickel. The cost of distributing and delivering the product are now, for all intents, zero-point-zero-zero. They used to be huge.

All they need to do is to be unafraid to give the customer what he wants: a copy of a sound-file, at whatever format (compressed or not) he prefers. After all, they've been distributing those same files on little plastic disks for a dozen years... at much greater expense to themselves.

Will someone "copy" that "unprotected" file? Absolutely. And shipping the files out on "little plastic disks" never changed that. (Neither did shipping them out on engraved vinyl disks, or magnetic tapes.) But did that "intrinsic ability to copy" cause the industry to perish? Uh, no. Will it do so now? Uh, no.

The more that the recording industry can ENCOURAGE the "no strings attached" online SALE of music ... which they can do only by REMOVING those "strings" ... the more money they are going to make. When you give the customer exactly what he wants, you're always going to make money. When you let your business-plans get clouded by fear, such that you feel that you "must" drop obstacles in the customer's way, you're always going to lose money (or leave it on the table).

[jimby]

>>The cost of distributing and delivering the product are now, for all intents, zero-point-zero-zero.

[Maka]

Yep!

[Free2Speak]

See, I told you that what they was going to do with the 3 tier pricing..Once the nose is under the tent all bets are off.The I said only crap would be at 69 cents,near crap 99 cents and all late music plus older music with high download rates would be $1.29.Effective increasing the music price by 30%.

[frantaylor]

By your own math, the effective price is the same.

[ThunderDolt]

Unless I'm mistaken, hit songs develop and they are not in most cases hits when released. A song would get more expensive when it becomes a hit? Are the megabyte reserves getting low?

[Sundialsvc4]

"Hits," as far as I can tell, are the result of great marketing more than the result of great songs. There is always going to be a "supply problem," as in too-much supply, because it's relatively easy to produce a good song and therefore the supply will always exceed the demand. And the song, good or bad, might literally never be heard by enough people to reach critical mass.

In the old days of independent radio stations ("oh, where are you now, Wolfman Jack?"), a lot of the airplay happened by word-of-mouth ... but there were also a lot of salesman out there on the road, and a lot of colorful 45's competing for the DJ's attention. I think that those days were a whole lot better than what we have now, because success was real and hard-won.

I still remember an REO Speedwagon concert that I went to a couple of years ago, when the lead singer said, "We're just going to play the A-side of 'High Infidelity,' and y'all just sing along because we know you've all got it and you all know the words." And we certainly did. The music was just as good as it ever was. Per contra... what was the most recent song put out by (insert soda-pop-cum-country-pop star name here)? I have no idea... :-D

[Witkacy]

That's exactly it! What this in fact means is that Apple will be charging the consumer more for songs/recordings which *Apple* most wants to sell to said consumer. This appears to me the same as, say, Coca-Cola selling at a *fixed* price higher than that of all competitors.

Here we have the industrial age business model turned on its head: mass-produced goods of inferior quality (and here I'm an aesthetic value judgment on iTunes biggest sellers) will cost more.

When my iPod eventually craps out, I think I'll be moving on to another type of player...

[deckard70]

I'd tend to agree with Sundialsvc4 -- hits are predetermined to be hits, by having promo copies of the planned hit single aired on radio every hour or every half hour, whatever the studio paid (er, given incentives to) the radio station to do. Sometimes these singles fail to sell once they are released a few weeks later, but usually, the masses have been conditioned to accept them as their must-buy hit.

It is easier (for the labels) to pre-select which songs will be hits, and to have only a handful of artists signed, than to have many artists where any of them could release several hits.

[IbeHappy]

Now I just want to ask why anyone wants to listen to dynamically compressed music through those irritating little earbuds in the first place? And only buying single songs at a time further just pushes us down the road where artists are only interested in formulating that "hit" song that will sell, rather than a group of songs with something to offer in more than a few.

[NickCatal]

the iTunes Plus 256k AAC compression is quite nice and the iPod has been consistently chosen by audiophile magazines as a good choice for playing music (plus it plays Apple Lossless.) You don't have to choose the earphones Apple gives (I have some of those Shure earphones that actually go in your ear) but Apple's earphones aren't that bad for just walking around

[VegetableMan]

"Now I just want to ask why anyone wants to listen to dynamically compressed music through those irritating little earbuds in the first place?"
to each is own, maybe? not everyone's an audiophile, perhaps? because they LIKE IT?

"And only buying single songs at a time further just pushes us down the road where artists are only interested in formulating that "hit" song that will sell, rather than a group of songs with something to offer in more than a few."
we've been there for a long time. never actually left it. "hit singles" were popular back to printed sheet music days. when AOR started to break on fm in '60s/ early '70s the paradigm changed, but top 40 am was still a viable listening experience. besides, if a band only writes one good song per album and cranks out 12 others just to fill up a cd, and those songs are still crap, why would i want them anyway?

leave people to enjoy their own musical experiences without your waggery, please. thanks!

[Mekales]

>>"And only buying single songs at a time further just pushes us down the road where artists are only interested in formulating that "hit" song that will sell, rather than a group of songs with something to offer in more than a few." we've been there for a long time. never actually left it.

[GayIthacan]

Ah yes.....

While 99.9% of all songs will DROP to 69 cents, HuffoPo chooses to focus on the NON-NEWS portion of the story.

The fact that a few are willing to pay MORE for the 'hot' songs is what permits nearly everyone else to pay LESS for the songs they love. Or did the 'newswriter' miss that part of econ class?

Typical lousy 'journalism'.

[VegetableMan]

you have truly bought into the music industry line of "big bands help us fund small bands." congratulations!

but how about this: why would a record label use good money they've gotten from a high-selling band to fund a smaller, more niche act? answer? THEY DON'T! those are the bands that get no "independent promotion" (read: payola), no tour support, no video support, and then get DROPPED because no one's heard of them. and the moguls still manage to get their expense-accounts for dinner at nobu.

go figure...