Music Labels Still Don’t Get It

The big Apple-related news today wasn’t the new MacBook refreshes, but rather NPD’s report that iTunes has become the second-largest music retailer in the country behind only Wal-Mart. A question that no one’s really asked yet, however, is whether this success makes the music industry happy.

The answer, in my opinion, would be a resounding “no.”

Although it hasn’t been reported much, it’s widely known that the major record labels, save for EMI, are providing Amazon and other online retailers with DRM-free and higher bit-rate versions of their music, believing this will deter consumers from iTunes and thus help create a viable competitor to Apple. It’s not hard to see that the labels are unhappy with Apple’s dominance and don’t want the company’s music share to grow any larger than it is today. Who loses in this scenario though? It’s definitely not Apple. They’re now the number-two retailer in the country. Nope — it’s the consumer.

As a consumer, ask yourself this: In what other industry would a manufacturer purposely sell what amounts to an inferior product essentially out of spite for a particular retailer’s success? If I buy an Xbox game or a DVD or a book from five different retailers, I sure as hell expect it to be the same exact product and experience no matter which store I purchased it from. Don’t make DRM-free music available to one retailer and not the other. You’re only continuing to create confusion in the market.

Music labels should start worrying about getting their houses in order and stop trying to determine who wins or loses in this game. Their focus should be on finding the best artists in the world, developing talent, recording great music and keeping customers happy. It shouldn’t be on trying to control where people buy their music.