Apple Vs the Music Business: Where Things Stand Today
Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 9:41AM
Here's a good article from Billboard that outlines the current relationship between Apple and the recording industry.
Apple, famous for its obsession over creating user-friendly products, may have itself become more user-friendly toward the music industry under CEO Tim Cook, who succeeded Steve Jobs 14 months ago.
While the Cupertino, Calif., technology titan continues to exert significant influence within the music industry, it's also doubled-down on improving its relationship with labels and distributors during the past 18 months, according to more than a dozen executives who spoke to Billboard for this story.
The changes range from a "more humble" tone from Apple in high-level strategic discussions to greater cooperation from iTunes staff at the operational level, according to music executives who didn't want to be publicly identified for fear of offending the world's largest music retailer.
"People are still petrified of Apple," says Rob Enderle, principal analyst for the Enderle Group, a technology consulting firm in San Jose, Calif.
Read more here. http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/digital-and-mobile/billboard-insight-music-business-stays-in-1007981622.story#Jytj8FVW4He0ZcTJ.99
Reader Comments (1)
I'm somewhat sympathetic towards Apple in this case because I suspect they are not getting equal terms from the record labels as the other vendors. For some reason they love Spotify but they discriminate against Pandora. Did they provide lower prices to support Amazon's Daily Deals? Where these albums full price to Apple but not to Amazon?
Apple is the 800 lb Gorilla that could buy up these labels with petty cash in Tim Cook's desk drawer. Despite this, we see no iTunes streaming service. Is this an Apple problem or a record label problem? There's too many unanswered questions but I put my money on the labels being the root cause. They haven't proven themselves to be very fair in dealing with digital media, ever.