The inevitable "variable" pricing has gone into effect on iTunes today. This basically satisfies the music industries' pleas for more control over pricing of the most popular songs. Chart-toppers will go for $1.29, songs of medium popularity for the former $.99 and catalogue songs go for $.69. Steve Jobs has said that most of the songs will go for the latter. It's really unfortunate that the recording industry couldn't be satisfied with the seemingly working "one price fits all." However, I'll let Apple slide on this one since the contract negotiations forced this structure upon the iTunes Store. One positive benefit we did get out of this negotiation is DRM-free music (encoded at 256kbps). Still...with everyone, including myself, taking second thoughts about how they are spending their money these days, I'm afraid over-priced digital music may be one of the first things to cut out. After coming all this way in digital sales...let's hope that we don't see a spike in music piracy after all of this.
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