http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/28/tech...ex.htm?cnn=yes
Music industry execs say prices, set low to stimulate demand, need to move higher: report.
February 28, 2005: 6:51 AM EST
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Just as legal music downloading is taking off in earnest, the major record labels are in talks to raise the price they charge online retailers for song downloads, a newspaper reported Monday.
The Financial Times, quoting unnamed music executives, said wholesale music prices, thought to be around 65 cents a song, were originally set artificially low in a bid to stimulate demand. The executives noted the success of Apple's hugely popular iPod digital music players, the report said.
The executives noted that prices to download mobile phone ring tones are roughly 10 to 15 percent higher than song downloads, according to the newspaper.
The move by the music labels was said to anger Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs. Apple, which charges 99 cents a song to download music from its iTunes online store, accounts for about 65 percent of all legal downloads, according to the paper.
Critics said that any move to raise prices could merely drive people back to illegal file sharing, which still far outstrips the number of legal music downloads, according to the report.
Nice way for them to shoot themselves again. What people they had moving to legal music will be all but evaporated if they do this.
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