[Infowarrior] - Apple renews iTunes flat-rate contracts

[Richard Forno]

Apple renews iTunes flat-rate contracts
http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/05/01/itunes.flat.rate.contracts/

Apple on Monday said it had renewed contracts with the four largest record
companies to sell songs through its iTunes for 99 cents each, according to
The Financial Times. The agreements were signed with Universal, Warner
Music, EMI and Sony BMG, following months of public jockeying on song
pricing. The music labels wanted to implement variable pricing to charge
more for more popular songs, while Steve Jobs, calling the Labels "greedy,"
wanted keep the flat price structure. The agreement is seen largely as a
defeat for music labels, as they struggle to regain control of the online
music industry, which is dominated by Apple's iTunes but continues to grow
rapidly. The report says that online music sales surged 194 per cent last
year to 352 million songs, according to Nielsen Soundscan. Overall album
sales fell 3.9 percent. Rival Napster has begun to offer free songs via the
Web in a effort to break Apple's stranglehold on digital music, which
accounts for about 5 percent of overall album sales.