The clueless CEO of Vivendi finally comes right out and says it – a 70% profit margin on a 99c iTunes song is not enough for them. Let’s just ignore the fact that 70% is much higher than the 30-40% cut they’d get from a CD sold in a store, or that Apple make a profit of only a cent or two per song once the cost of storage, bandwidth, support and payment processing is subtracted from their cut.
A clue for Universal – EMI have a way to increase their profits – they give us DRM-free music at a higher bandwidth, for which I happily pay a premium. From all reports they’re doing well with this model.
The simple fact is that Universal are greedy pricks without a reason to exist anymore, and they deserve to die. I’m boycotting them. Why should I have to pay extra for my music simply because Universal’s parent company is losing 90 million euros a year due to incompetence? Who’s with me?
a) paying for music is just encouragin’ the fux0rs
- paying the artist directly (be it merch, live shows, or just plain payin’ em direct for the music) is another story
b) the new Amazon music store should shake things up a bit
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/25/amazon-creates-gigan.html
c) Hi!
exceptr that, b) the Amazon music store is seeling Universal stuff….
It appears to be as much an attempt from some of the Majors to atack the iTunes store as it is an attempt from Amazon to crack another market. Its highly unlikely that Amazon is giving away the alarming 70% that Apple is on every song sold…..
I just bought an album for $7.99 US (around $9.00 Australian). I’m completely okay with Universal leaving money on the table as long as the music is DRM-free and of a sufficient quality.
I still would have purchased the album on the Australian iTMS if it was DRM-free, regardless of the extra cost. I trust AAC more.