The Greed Industry

October 1, 2005

Just when you think the music industry can’t look any more stupid, we read this article…

A Warner Music executive has threatened to cut off Apple if Steve Jobs continues to refuse to give ground on iTunes Music Store pricing.

Digital strategy chief Michael Nash said during a discussion at a wireless telecoms conference that the music industry has let Apple get too much power in the digital downloads market.

So at at time consumers are getting more and more excited about music again, at a time when there have been nearly a billion leglal sound downloads.

These fools bring that old saying "cut off your nose to spite your face" to a whole new level.

The record companies’ position is based on the dubious argument that digital downloads sell iPods. In fact all the evidence points to the opposite: that iPod sales have driven demand for downloads. The vast majority of digital music sales are made by iPod owners. Cut off Apple and the labels digital sales will slump.

But why pay attention to pesky things like "facts"?? This is the record company after all!

In the longer term music bosses (and Apple’s rivals) are clinging the idea that the iPod’s dominance of the MP3 player market cannot go on forever. But such is Apple’s overwhelming market superiority that other device manufacturers are complaining that they cannot get hold of flash memory because Apple is buying up the entire supply for its iPod nano.

Rather than simply being happy with the current situation, they’re trying to whip their strongest partner into submission. Smart. Of course, these are the same people who spend millions to shut down Napster, rather than trying to understand how they could use it to cling to expand old school models into new school money.

In many ways I’m beginning to hope that the music industry pulls their support from iTunes. In order to continue selling iPods, Apple would have to then focus on independent artists for content acquisition. Imagine what happens to the music industry when a band can spend $1000 to record, and have it distributed far and wide. Seriously – imagine what happens to music when there’s a very powerful force in the music industry that’s not based on the concept of a "music label"…