Digital Home Thoughts: Bronfman vs. Jobs

"Steve Jobs calls major labels greedy for wanting to raise prices in iTMS. Edgar Bronfman, CEO of Warner Music, calls Jobs unrealistic: ”There’s no content that I know of that does not have variable pricing. Not all songs are created equal—not all time periods are created equal. We want, and will insist upon having, variable pricing.” Insist? As TechDirt points out, the wholesaler has (or should have( nothing to do with retail pricing. If Bronfman wants variable pricing, then he should charge Apple variable wholesale prices. Of course he’s afraid to, which is what makes his posturing so pitiful. Jobx will not flinch here; he is right that the market is not mature enough for the complexity of variable pricing, and he knows he’s right."



Here we go again. Don't music industry execs learn? Don't bite the hand that feeds you! Jobs is right. People will not go for variable pricing when it comes to downloadable music. The latest news has music execs touting $3-4 prices for downloadable songs. Who are they kidding? At that price a whole CD's worth of music will cost over $40! And you probably won't even be able to burn it to a CD! Also, I love the quote from Bronfman about how there's no content without variable pricing. Last I checked, movie tickets are usually all the same price. Oh, and Movies On Demand on my local cable network are all the same price. Hmmm, and CDs are usually about the same price...