Another Sign of Record Industry Greed



Thanks to Wired's Cult of Mac blog...

Subpoenas for the record industry

It's all fun and games until the feds get involved. According to a report at MSNBC, the U.S. Justice Department has begun investigating "the possibility of anticompetitive practices in the music download industry.

According to the report, Sony BMG has apparently already received a subpoena. The inquiry is said to be along the same lines as New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's inquiry launched in December seeking to know the wholesale prices labels are charging for downloads.

This appears to be fall-out of some kind related to the ongoing dispute between Apple and the record industry, which was more than happy to use the 99-cent price for downloads when the the iTunes Music Store didn't seem likely to be a breakaway success.

A billion songs will change your beliefs about anything, and a couple of companies, notably Warner Music Group, have demanded that Apple allow for flexible (higher-margin, presumably) pricing on songs sold through iTunes. Apple isn't having it, of course. The iTunes model is a success, and the impulse pricing at 99 cents is one of the biggest reasons why.

But the recording industry has never shown itself to be terribly adept at not screwing up a good thing. So it goes on.

Posted: Fri - March 10, 2006 at 11:21 AM           |

©