iTunes is so, so unfair

The music industry’s lack of innovation ability to even look at business differently is rather sad. Even after Apple showed how digital downloads could be made profitable, they’re pressuring Jobs to change his pricing model, complaining about his ingenuity

A sore point for some music executives is the fact that Apple generates much more money selling iPod players than it does as a digital music retailer, leading to complaints that Mr. Jobs is profiting more from tracks downloaded to fill the 21 million iPods sold so far than are the labels that produced the recordings.

Andrew Lack, the chief executive of Sony BMG, discussed the state of the overall digital market at a media and technology conference three months ago and said that Mr. Jobs “has got two revenue streams: one from our music and one from the sale of his iPods.”

“I’ve got one revenue stream,” Mr. Lack said, joking that it would require a medical professional to locate. “It’s not pretty.”

No, it’s not. But why blame that on Jobs?

1 comment

  1. Let’s see, the music industry is complaining because someone else has created a new sales channel for their product? And if iTunes (and the others) didn’t exist, would they be making _any_ money?

Comments are closed.