According to the Los Angeles Times, Music majors finally obtained the agreement from Apple to stop the single price tag of 0.99 USD/track policy on the iTunes Store. From April 7th, the same majors will offer currently popular music hit at 1.29 USD/track, opening the door of variable price range depending on the major and if the artist or the song are outdated according to their marketing parameters... This is the first step back from Steve Jobs' statements concerning the iTS price policy.
This decision will for sure lead to heavy reactions from the customers association, especially if on considers that it not entirely supported by all music majors. Indeed, why increasing he price of a legal online offer for people willing to purchase via this channel, whereas those willing to get their music from the usually illegal P2P network will continue to do so. Such price increase could only push more people towards the illegal music sharing networks. By trying to hide their incapacity of refreshing their business model or their inability to offer a new music-bundle products or services, their current policy to increase the cost on online music to cover the drop of sales of music CDs might in the mid-term make Majors losing much more than what they think. Recently in France and in Europe, some artists have been produced by new virtual companies funded by customers willing to promote the type of music they like and avoid being brain-washed and forced to listen to the standards defined by Majors...
