Warner Music Group CEO hits back at Steve Jobs

Iria · Sep 27, 2005, 12:30 AM

Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. has hit back at the comments made by Apple CEO Steve Jobs earlier this week that accused major music labels of being greedy for demanding that the prices of some music downloads should be pushed up. Apple has a policy of selling songs for 99c. It's simple and it's easy and good for an emerging market to have set prices, but the music labels believe that variable pricing should be used based on the popularity of tracks.

"There’s no content that I know of that does not have variable pricing," said Mr. Bronfman at an investors conference in New York. "Not all songs are created equal—not all time periods are created equal. We want, and will insist upon having, variable pricing." Steve Jobs worries that increasing the price of music will simply turn many users of legal net music stores back to piracy on P2P networks. Mr. Bronfman believes that Apple's one price for all tracks is not just unfair to the labels, but also to artists.

"To have only one price point is not fair to our artists, and I dare say not appropriate to consumers. The market should decide, not a single retailer," he said. "Some songs should be $0.99 and some songs should be more. I don't want to give anyone the impression that $0.99 is a thing of the past." One thing the music industry needs to adjust to is the difference in selling music on CDs as full albums and selling music as Internet downloads; most consumers are only interested in a few tracks.
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Read More / Source: AfterDawn

Sep 27, 2005, 12:30 AM	#1
Iria DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 7,275 Rep Power: 89	Warner Music Group CEO hits back at Steve Jobs Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. has hit back at the comments made by Apple CEO Steve Jobs earlier this week that accused major music labels of being greedy for demanding that the prices of some music downloads should be pushed up. Apple has a policy of selling songs for 99c. It's simple and it's easy and good for an emerging market to have set prices, but the music labels believe that variable pricing should be used based on the popularity of tracks. "There’s no content that I know of that does not have variable pricing," said Mr. Bronfman at an investors conference in New York. "Not all songs are created equal—not all time periods are created equal. We want, and will insist upon having, variable pricing." Steve Jobs worries that increasing the price of music will simply turn many users of legal net music stores back to piracy on P2P networks. Mr. Bronfman believes that Apple's one price for all tracks is not just unfair to the labels, but also to artists. "To have only one price point is not fair to our artists, and I dare say not appropriate to consumers. The market should decide, not a single retailer," he said. "Some songs should be $0.99 and some songs should be more. I don't want to give anyone the impression that $0.99 is a thing of the past." One thing the music industry needs to adjust to is the difference in selling music on CDs as full albums and selling music as Internet downloads; most consumers are only interested in a few tracks. ___________ Read More / Source: AfterDawn