- The music industry has let Apple get too much power in the digital downloads market, Warner Music “digital strategy chief” Michael Nash told attendees at a wireless telecoms conference.
At least, that's what a PC Pro story (which may, or may not, have drawn from a story in The Register) has him saying.
Warner has threatened to cut off Apple if Steve Jobs continues to refuse to give ground on iTunes, the piece goes on.
Apple is whining because the members of the Big Four record label cartel, Warner, MI, Universal and Sony BMG, want to boost wholesale rates for their already grotesquely over-priced ‘product’.
iTunes is a self-financing promo vehicle for iPod, at the same time serving as the only viable corporate music service out there.
Pure baloney The disinterred Napster and Real Networks’ unreal RealPlayer are the only other two Big Music serviced and supplied download applications one hears about. But Napster seems always to be in financial trouble while RealPlayer experiences non-stop, critical, security problems.
The labels claim there are another 297 active corporate music sites available. However, that’s pure Big Four baloney and in any event, available they may be, but neither they nor the iTunes / Napster/ RealPlayer trio have any presence whatsoever in the real world of online music, where the action is all on the p2p networks.
Back to Nash, “What if Jobs says 39 cents or 29 cents per download - what then?” – PC Pro has him saying. “The industry can say, OK we'll cut him off” and, in an extremely interesting admission, “very few people buy music from digital downloads”.
Nash's comments echo those made last week by Warner ceo Edgar Bronfman, “who called for Apple to adopt variable pricing and share out revenues from iPod sales,” adds the story.
Jobs’ response was: the labels are being “greedy”.
“The record companies' position is based on the dubious argument that digital downloads sell iPods,” adds PC Pro. “In fact all the evidence points to the opposite: that iPod sales have driven demand for downloads. The vast majority of digital music sales are made by iPod owners. Cut off Apple and the labels digital sales will slump.”
Kenneth Hertz But uh oh!!!!
It seems Nash didn’t make the cut-off threat after all. It was, rather, down to Kenneth Hertz, a lawyer.
“In a story entitled Warners raises decapitation strategy for Apple, we wrongly attributed remarks about Apple's iTunes Music Store made during a panel discussion at the CTIA show to Warner Music senior vice president Michael Nash.
“These remarks were made by another panelist, Kenneth Hertz, partner at Goldring Hertz and Lichtenstein LLP, a law firm representing major recording industry artists.
“Hertz, not Nash, said – ‘What if Jobs says 39 cents or 29 cents per download - what then? The industry can say, OK we'll cut him of - very few people people buy music from digital downloads... [Jobs] will figure out another model ... The industry got together and said ‘We don't want another MTV'. Well, now we've got another MTV, in Apple. And we have to deal with it’.
“To Michael and everyone at Warner: we're really sorry.”
See:- PC Pro - Warner chief threatens to scalp iTunes, September 29, 2005 greedy - Jobs sticks up for music lovers, September 22, 2005 Reg oops - Warner Music's Michael Nash - no executioner, September 29, 2005
