So there are reports all over the web that Universal Music isn’t going to renew their annual contract with Apple for their music to appear in the iTunes Music store. Apparently they don’t know who they’re dealing with…and I don’t say that to make it sound like Apple is invincible when it comes to online music sales.
I mean, literally, they must not know who they are dealing with. Steve Jobs does not flinch when it comes to this type of hardball crap. He never has. In fact, Jobs will stand his ground even when it’s the wrong thing to do. If Universal thinks they can threaten Apple with the removal of Universal music from the iTunes store and have Jobs and Co. bend to whatever demands or concessions Universal wants…well, I think they’re going to be in for a BIG surprise.
Right now, they’re simply wanting to work on a temporary agreement, not their annual contract – supposedly this will allow them to do exclusives with other online music stores. I don’t know if they’ve checked the numbers or not, but they can do all the exclusives they want with other stores…no one has those players. Apple sells more music than Amazon. According to the Macworld 2007 Keynote 58 songs are sold in the iTune music store every second…Universal isn’t going to find that in the Zune Marketplace.
The iPod’s insanely dominant marketshare isn’t going away anytime soon, and if Universal wants to have success in another online music store, there’s only one way to do it…by doing DRM free….and we all know that isn’t going to happen.
10 thoughts on “Universal wants to play hardball with Apple – their stupidity amazes me…”
Every 58 seconds? Really? That seems like a lot less often than I would have thought.
@Geoff –
Yup…according to Jobs. The key thing to remember is that even though iTunes is the most successful online store, the vast majority of music is still purchased on CD.
That sales number is definitely wrong. The info I can find shows 1.5 billion sold between 2/23/06 and 4/9/07 (the date they announced they had hit 2.5 billion total). If my math is correct, that’s about 42 songs PER SECOND.
In the Macworld 2007 keynote Steve said that the iTunes Store is selling 5 million songs a day. That’s 58 songs *every* second.
Whoops…I’m an idiot. Corrected.
Cannot be one song per 58 seconds. That’s only a bit over 500,000 a year. You heard wrong or Jobs spoke wrong…
Apple make next to nothing in terms of profit with the iTunes Store, and other online stores are probably making losses.
As the Top 40 singles sales chart is dominated by Apples iTunes Store sales, if Universal do go ahead and pull all their content from the iTunes Store the only people being hurt will be Universal themselves and their Artists – NOT Apple.
Remember over 90% of music on iPods comes from CDs not the iTunes Store.
Steve Jobs should tell Doug Morris CEO of Universal Music Group to take a long walk off a short pier.
@ John –
I think that’s exactly what Jobs will do, and I agree 100%.
If the CEO of Universal Music decides to do this, it’ll be one of the last things he does before being fired.
I found this funny when I was reading it this morning. Universal is pretty stupid and John is right, Apple doesn’t make a whole lot of music sales, this would hurt the iTunes store, yes, but directly affect Apples profits, not likely. Universal will feel the blow more likely.
58 songs… 42 songs… 100,123 songs…
WHATEVER.