Despite iTunes Dominance, Record Companies Not Too Pleased

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

It's no doubt clear to almost everyone just what kind of power Apple has over the music industry, but thinking about it, it does seem a little odd for a company that a) isn't a record company and b) didn't have anything to do with music before 2000. Yet, thanks to their iTunes store, they've been able to grasp the entire industry and wind up the ultimate decider in various decisions, such as individual track prices.

You can imagine that with Apple having such a huge role in the industry, the record companies can't be too pleased, and that seems to be true. It's been discovered that Apple CEO Steve Jobs and the Chairman of Sony Music, Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, had a rather heated conversation on Christmas Eve that saw Apple come out the victor. That's the kind of power Apple has, and it's impressive.

That's not to say that it's a good thing though, because in my opinion, it isn't. With Apple remaining the dominant digital music seller, there's little competition, and with the recent DRM drop and variable pricing, it's going to be extremely difficult for others to compete. We need to see it happen though, for the good of the industry.

I don't want to see music prices increase, and I really can't see that happening soon, if ever, but I do feel we need more competition. It can't really be a good thing all-around if the music industry is constantly holding angst towards a certain company... although, I admit it sure doesn't feel too bad to see them in a helpless situation, given how many needless lawsuits they've filed against helpless users over the years.

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Even Charlie Walk, the former president of Epic Records, a unit of Sony Music, acknowledges, "Whether the industry likes it or not, the iTunes chart showing the most popular songs in America is a major influencer of how kids today discover and communicate with their friends what kind of music they like. It’s a very powerful thing right now in American pop culture and immediately validates a hit song."

Source: DailyTech
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[Kougar]

All I can say is, I'm glad Apple is at least fighting the music industry. I think there is plenty of room for competition if other online distributors were allowed to offer DRM-free music in as-good, higher quality, or even lossless quality formats.

There is plenty of rare or hard to find music that Apple and even Amazon don't offer or don't have any knowledge of, either because it's a tiny, independant group, a small international group, or the tracks/album was a collaboration with enough artists that attempting to distribute it would be a licensing+royalty nightmare.

 

[Rob Williams]

I agree there, I'm glad that at least someone is working towards fighting the industry. I notice it with the choice of music alone. I checked out the Zune Marketplace the other night (despite not being able to purchase anything), and out of near 15 songs I was looking for, they had one. By comparison, iTunes had 9 or 10. I know I have obscure taste, but still.

You US folk still have an upper-hand though. I found out that there is a lot of music locked-out to Canadians, and I've verified that to be absolutely true. I changed my locale to the USA and sure enough, I found eight songs in the span of five minutes that were not available to me in the Canadian store. It's too bad that actually purchasing them is a lot more difficult than simply changing your locale.

There is plenty of rare or hard to find music that Apple and even Amazon don't offer or don't have any knowledge of

That's true, but what I find odd is that sometimes, they'll actually have the artist I'm looking for, but not the particular track. That's odd, because, some of these artists are not that well known, and most are DJs, so to have any songs at all is surprising to me. Why they don't have the particular tracks I want is beyond me. If a label is going to put an artist on there, they should put his/her entire catalogue. I do realize some artists have a wide-range of labels, but I can't be stuffed to do the research on that, heh.

I will give kudos to iTunes on some of their selection though. There's this one album that I've wanted for around six+ years, but I never really knew if it was real or not. The reason I say that is because even the artist didn't list that particular album on his site. But, for fun I typed it into iTunes, and they had it. Two different versions even, so I bought them both. I've actually been able to find a lot more on iTunes than I ever expected, so I can't complain too much.

I still want a lossless version of the store though :-/