In this type of economic market it’s not necessarily the supply variables that determine prices. This is by no means a competitive industry. Sure, there are lots of, say, rock bands, but there is only ONE Beatles and ONE Jay-Z and ONE Rancid. What will really determine price is the buyer’s willingness to pay or not pay for the product.

My first notion is that the higher price per song was a compromise; Steve Jobs said “Give us DRM free music!” EMI came to the table and said, “If its DRM free, some of those downloads will be pirated, so allow us to charge more to make up for it, otherwise why should we bother?” Then they argued about what percentage would realistically be pirated and finally agreed on 30%.

Then they realized that most people don’t know jack about DRM and won’t know why they should pay a higher price for what they perceive is the same song. So the agreed that also making them higher quality files will justify the extra $0.30 for 90% of the dum dums who buy from iTunes (I love the iTS, but seriously, you should have to pass a 6th grade spelling and grammar test before being allowed to write a review FFS)

The closest business analogy to what Apple/EMI are doing/have done is unleaded gas. For those old enough to remember the switch from leaded to unleaded fuel, we were never given a sound reason as to why unleaded fuel should be more expensive, since lead was *added* to the gasoline to make it leaded in the first place.

The popular perception of the time (right or wrong) was this : since a step is being left out of the manufacturing process, the gas should be cheaper not more expensive.

I imagine this is how it is with all those arguing and raging against the price hike, myself included. Once you have the original file set up, making copies is nearly effortless and for all practical purposes a zero cost. (Side note: this is not taking into account infrastructure costs, just the human labor involved) Since DRM had to be added to the music file, there is an argument to be made not paying to encode the music with DRM should result in significant savings to EMI.

At the same time, Apple/EMI cannot claim $0.30 per copy of expense for every track sold, as the change needs to occur to only the original file in a one-time transaction.

The reality is this price increase just mysteriously happens to put the new DRM free music on par with a physical CD in my neck of the woods - about $16. Isn’t that an odd coincidence? Shouldn’t the fact that I am not getting anything physical with a download (jewel case, liner notes, plastic wrap, et cetera) mean lower costs for me when compared to a CD purchase?

Of course the DRM-free music is a great development. I won’t argue that point at all. I just fail to see why I should pay more for what shouldn’t be there in the first place, especially when there are demonstrably lower costs involved with the download than the comparable physical product. So where am I wrong in this?

It makes sense to charge more for higher quality, but to charge more to remove DRM…hmm. That stinks! *

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* this post in no way defends David DeJean’s blither blather.

There hasn’t been much comment on the practical effect of these changes though: a 30% hike in the cost of songs. That’s music to the label’s ears…

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness:

Truthiness is a satirical term coined by television comedian Stephen Colbert[1] to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively, instinctively, or “from the gut” without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or actual facts

Otherwise, smashing article and analysis.

No, it still doesn’t make sense, because he doesn’t explore the SOURCE of those feelings: i.e. himself. Instead, it’s all about what Apple and EMI have done (or maybe what they haven’t done, it’s hard to tell).

If there’s a real causal link between his feelings and Apple or EMI, he still hasn’t explained it. He’s hiding behind a ranting whining attitude with little or no apparent basis in reality.

IMNSHO.

He doesn’t love EMI, he says. He doesn’t trust them, because they “treated him like a thief” (which is silly, since they’d happily sell him a non-DRM CD at any time).

Once you realise he’s talking feelings, rather than rational analysis, it makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it?

(And to quote Lord Julius, “Find out what that man’s been smoking and have an ounce of it delivered to my chambers!”)

What planet is this guy David living on? AAC is MP4 audio. He’s complaining because he wants to use MP3 instead of the format that the MPEG, who came up with MP3, designed to replace it with?

OK, so he’s on Windows, and he’s presumably such a Windows fanboy that he won’t use iTunes for Windows. Well, I’ve some news for him: Foobar 2000, favourite of teh audio-enthusiasts, plays AAC:

http://www.foobar2000.org/

So does Winamp. Heck, even Windows Media Player, out-of-date as it is, will play it with the right plug-ins. There’s likely others I don’t even know about. We’re usually being told by the likes of David that the Windows world is so rich in third-party applications. You know: developers, developers, developers.

Actually … here you go, David: comparison of media players from Wikipedia, audio format support section. It took me all of 10 seconds to look that up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_media_players#Audio_format_support