Digital Music Stock Market?

tommertron writes "Adam L. Penenberg has a column on Slate about about the pricing of digital music, specifically, iTunes' 99-cent-a-song model. Basically, he suggests that song prices be determined by market forces, just like stock and commodities markets. The more a song gets downloaded, the more it would cost. Song by big-name bands would cost more, and lesser-known acts would cost less (with a minimum of 25 cents.)" From the article: "Steve Jobs, who has been willing to take a few pennies per download so long as he sells bushels of iPods, calls tiered pricing 'greedy.' That view is shared by millions of consumers who believe the record companies have been gouging them for years. From the buyer's perspective, however, Apple's 99-cents-for-everything model isn't perfect. Isn't 99 cents too much to pay for music that appeals to just a few people?"

Re:Oh, for God's sake

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't read the article but the entire idea is flawed for one reason: Price elasticity is different for every song and artist. To use one demand-driven criteria for every song and artist would be stupid. To determine individual price elasticities for each song & artists would be impossible, at best a guessing game.

Demand only determines price when coupled with price elasticity.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Oh, for God's sake

[mrchaotica]

iTMS works with the labels. Their store runs promotions at their request, and buys music only through the major labels (or large music groups, in the case of "indie" music), rather than run a label of its own or simply pirate files from a country beyond copyright enforcement powers (as allofmp3.com does.)

Don't blame Apple Computer for this; they're legally barred from doing otherwise becasue of their settlement with Apple Records. Now, on the other hand, if Apple C. bought out Apple R., then they'd be getting somewhere.

Re:$0.99 is already unfair

[Have Blue]

Actually, that 18-song album will cost $10 to download. The only albums that cost more than $10 have a very large number of songs (30+, say) and would be even more expensive multi-disk sets on CD.

When are people going to wake up and learn!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, forget iTunes. I use AllOfMP3 [allofmp3.com]. You pay per # of bytes you download. For 128Kbps a song typically costs $0.10. And they provide songs in MP3 or OGG Vorbis format. No DRM and Legal! You can get 320Kbps quality songs too, an entire album for $2!

No, I'm not trolling, I'm not trying to advertise, I just don't understand why people don't just use this or similar services like MP3Search.ru [mp3search.ru].