Imagine a world without iPod buds plugged in everyone’s ear, iPods, iTouches or iAnythings. That was the recent reality faced by Apple’s iTunes, one that some music publishers wanted to see happen.
The Internet’s most popular music downloading site has been in the news recently for facing a potential shutdown.
The legal means by which the majority of students purchase music, movies and television shows is in jeopardy because of an increase in royalty costs.
The royalty increase is a shift from nine cents to 15 cents per track. This amounts to a 66 percent climb in royalty cost. This increase is being brought on by the Copyright Royalty Board of America. Music publishers have requested this increase to increase pay to publishers and songwriters alike. Apple currently charges 99 cents per song on iTunes.
Of those 99 cents, there are many different people that need to be paid. iTunes pays 65 to 70 cents to the music artists and out of that payment nine cents is passed along to publishers. Such an increase would make songs $1.05.
Eddy Cue, the vice president of Apple’s iTunes has said, ‘Apple has repeatedly made clear that it is in this business to make money, and would most likely not continue to operate iTS [iTunes Store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.’
The bottom line is that if such an increase were instated, visitors to the iTunes store would be less likely to buy the music and iTunes would face the end of its musical life.
The Copyright Royalty Board is comprised of three judges that administer digital sales of music relating to federal copyright laws. Apple has seen tremendous success with its iPod and iTunes store.
Because of online music, CD sales have fallen by 20 percent. This new problem of royalty costs online is threatening our new breed of purchased music.
Not only would a royalty increase threaten the iTunes store but, as has been seen already, piracy of music online has taken profits away from iTS.
While those proposing the royalty increase believe that the industry will prosper for both the publishers and online downloading companies alike, iTunes disagrees because online sales are already decreasing due to piracy.
While iTunes believes higher song prices will deter buyers (the consumer), what do iTunes users think? Avid iTunes buyer, Alex Clark ’12 relies heavily on iTunes, ‘I could not imagine a world without iTunes and I would never illegally download so, really, it would be the end of music for me.’
WVOF Station Manager, Dan Grazynski does not use iTunes, but rather gets music from music record labels, directly from bands and from record distributors. However, Grazynski says that iTunes is a ‘vital’ part of the radio station. With the radio staff using iTunes for their on-air playlists, a shutdown would be detrimental, ‘I think the iTunes program is a program that helps you organize your music and is so much ‘cleaner’ and less bulky than windows media player.’
Stay tuned for the latest on this shutdown and for now enjoy your music before it is gone.
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