A Shot In The Foot
June 3, 2010
With the Hammer finally coming down on Limewire (courtesy of Judge Kimba Wood) , one may expect occasion for celebration. But answer me this, was it really worth it? Ok I’m being controversial, so lets flesh the premise out with some context.
I recently attended The Great Escape. In a panel regarding Indian music, it was commented that as there are so few routes to market for fans to access ‘western’ music, the only way to ‘get at the goods’ is via P2P. Illegitimate? Yes of course. BUT would an artist rather that their content remain allusive?
So, by ‘was it really worth it?’ what I mean is; have we just slammed the door shut on our music fans; of whom the intention to remunerate artists may have existed, and yet been unfulfiled due to a lack of investment on the industry’s part?
hmmm
Read about the case here:
http://www.themusicvoid.com/2010/05/the-flip-side-is-winning-really-winning/
The Big Apple
June 3, 2010
The US Justice Department has just opened an enquiry into Apple’s alleged anti-competitive practices. Apple dominate the digital music market with around 70% of sales going through its iTunes store. Now, the story goes that Apple barely profits from its digital music sales, using its iTunes platform more as a tool to leverage sales of hardware.
Being one of the pioneering digital services, iTunes essentially established the pricing points of digital a la carte downloads, which are so low that other services (think Amazon mp3) struggle to compete with them. Let’s face it, iPods are pretty cool, and you can’t entice a customer to pay higher prices with any old flim-flam (or at least, the tech-savvy adopters of the ‘digital age’).
To the point: Key labels including Sony and EMI MAY have been manipulated by Apple into not participating in Amazon’s special Daily Deal promotions where a featured album usually sells for the low prices of $3.99-$5.99, as opposed to the almost standard $9.99. On top of this Apple are looking to enter the streaming market, and in essence are beginning to get ‘too big for their boots’.
Lot’s of speculation here, judge for yourselves:
http://www.themusicvoid.com/2010/06/trying-to-get-a-bite-of-the-apple/
