In a land far, far away, there's a man named Alain Levy. Alain is a very important person indeed, for, you see, Alain is the King of EMI Music. For years his loyal subjects answered his beck and call and for years his loyal subjects held on to his every word as though it was the gospel. And for years, it was.
Sadly for King Alain and his loyal subjects, the times have changed. There's unrest in the fringes of EMI Kingdom. Certain less loyal subjects are spreading unrest and fantastic tales of how things are in other lands, in lands where people had certain freedoms not given to King Alain's subjects.
The most infamous of these ne'er-do-wells was an ex-court jester named Steve Jobs.
On rainy day, the King and his court were relaxing in the King's magnificent throne room, enjoying food and drink the likes of which the common folk could only dream. They were also enjoying the merryment provided by Jester Jobs. He could sing and perform magic tricks, but he was best at telling fantastic stories.
During one of Jester Jobs' breaks, a lesser known member of the King's Court name Cary approached him and asked him very kindly for a short story. Thinking for a moment, Jester Jobs tells the King's hanger-on a story. This story, though, wasn't fantastical. In fact, it was something Jester Jobs had been thinking of for a very, very long time indeed.
Jester Jobs told Cary about a fantasy, about how the subjects could listen to stories any way they wanted, from anywhere they wanted and use them however they wanted. In the Kingdom of EMI, you see, subjects could only hear stories from one place, and they had to pay each time to listen to a story, even if there was nothing new.
Well, the courtier was flabbergasted! He stormed away from Jester Jobs and went immediately to King Alain to repeat every word Jester Jobs said. As Cary repeated the story, King Alain's face turned darker and darker shades of red until he could turn no redder. The King bellowed for his Royal Guardsmen and demanded they strip Jester Jobs of his funny hat and boots. King Alain demanded that the Royal Guardsmen take away Jester Jobs' baliset and throw him out of the castle for ever.
Ex-Jester Jobs wasn't sad. He wasn't unhappy or mad. In fact, Ex-Jester Jobs decided that he would start his own Kingdom, and in his kingdom he would let people choose what they wanted to read and when they wanted to read it. He wouldn't change the price of some stories just because they were more popular.
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As it happens, Jester Jobs is now King Jobs of Kingdom Turtleneck and many of his subjects have come from the Kingdom of EMI, as well as many from Warner Kingdom, the Empire of Sony as well as many smaller kingdoms. The Kingdom of EMI is still very large with many subjects but it is getting smaller all the time as people move to Kingdom Turtleneck.
To stop his subjects from moving, King Alain has put new laws into place that prevent his subjects from even more things, like repeating the stories they hear out loud to their family. He has even outlawed writing, because if people knew how to write they may then copy the stories they heard. These new laws, of course, just make more people move to Kingdom Turtleneck. However, King Alain has one last trick up his sleeve.
You see, King Alain and his EMI Kingdom produced many of the stories that King Jobs sells in Kingdom Turtleneck. King Alain invites King Jobs to EMI Kingdom for a fair that was beyond imagination. During this fair, King Alain tries to convince King Jobs that controlling the people the way they are controlled in EMI Kingdom is better for the subjects in the long-run and, nudge nudge, more profitable for Kings too! King Jobs repeatedly ignores King Alain's suggestions.
To this very day King Jobs hasn't changed. In fact, because his subjects are so happy, many more smaller kingdoms are selling their stories in Kingdom Turtleneck and fewer and fewer stories are coming from EMI Kingdom.
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What's the moral of the story? Well, replace stories with mp3s and Kingdom Turtleneck with iTunes, and you have this story in a nutshell. Here are other relevant quotes:
"Some songs should be $0.99 and some songs should be more. I don't want to give anyone the impression that $0.99 is a thing of the past,"
"We are selling our songs through iPod, but we don't have a share of iPod's revenue," he said. "We want to share in those revenue streams.
We have to get out of the mindset that our content has promotional value only."
