The music insdustry is actively working on trying to get the marketplace to a model where the consumer is charged each time they listen to a song. They are on crack, and live in fantasyland.

Charging more for popular songs and albums is not an unreasonable position, especially if it's accompanied by a cut in price of less popular tracks. It's how CDs in stores are priced.

[link]

An opposing view to Tom's link: [link]

Yeah, my expereince is that new and popular albums are discounted, and you pay through the nose for back catalogue stuff.

Jon, here's where I think the penguin's argument is flawed:

The likely outcome of the variable pricing model backed by the industry is an enormous amount of catalogue simply disappearing. This already happens in the world outside of Internet economics, let me give you an example.

I don't know much about the music industry, but from a layman's perspective there's a significant difference between Internet economics and the traditional music industry: the costs of distribution. Under the old model, printing and distributing records/tapes/cds is costly and there's going to be a price point at which it's unfeasible. But internet delivery costs are practically negligible. So songs that are in low demand can be cost-effective even for mere pennies.

Or maybe I'm a wrong-headed ignoramous.

I was thinking the same thing, Wolfram.
t on edit errr... your first paragraph, not the ignoramus part.

FTR, by posting that link I wasn't saying I agreed with the penguin guy or the other guy. I'm not sure where I stand. I just wanted to spark some discussion.

Tom's link makes some interesting points. I'm just afraid that if the record companies get their way, they'll raise prices on new, popluar stuff without lowering prices on other stuff.

And there's still a lot of stuff I want that's still out of print and not available on iTunes. I've spent a small fortune on used copies of rare, out of print CDs in the last year. Come to think of it, I would have gladly paid $1.50 per song on iTunes for them. It's just if the majority of stuff went for the $1.50 that would piss me off.

eta: Anyone know if the record companies also want to raise the $9.99 per album price that most stuff goes for on iTunes?

Apple makes the software and equipment that allows you to make recordings relatively cheaply, and it has the largest (legal) online distribution network.

If you don't need anyone to print and distribute CDs, then what function does a record label serve?

The penguin's article was incomprehensible nonsense. Wolfram hits the nail on the head: penguin doesn't even consider the economics of making back catalogues available.

My experience with record companies is that they don't consider the economics of the back catalog either. I do hope that they will change, but they haven't up until this point.