Recording Industry Now Angry About Discounted Downloads
from the someone-buy-them-an-economics-textbook dept
There's just no way to please the recording industry, is there? Yesterday, we wrote about how the recording industry was trying to raise prices on digital downloads by forcing people to buy a bad song with each good song they wanted. It appears they're going even further. Despite the fact that basic capitalism suggests a retailer should be able to sell products at whatever price they want, assuming they've paid for them properly, the Australian recording industry is furious that broadband provider Telstra is daring to offer discounted downloads - selling them beneath cost to try to attract new broadband users. However the industry, which has apparently never heard of promotional material or the concept of a "loss-leader," seems to think there's something sinister going on here. The head of the Australian recording industry says everyone should be skeptical that Telstra is just trying to get people interested in buying downloadable music, because clearly they're trying to sell (gasp!!) more broadband connections!!! No!!! Anything but that! Wait a second... isn't that their business? Of course they're trying to sell more broadband connections, and using cheaper music to do so. Next thing you know, Coke and Pepsi are going to start protesting pizza places that give away a free drink with two slices of pizza.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
It gets worse
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: It gets worse
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
aria angry with tel$tra
aria & its mp3 goon police are used to picking on 19 yr old students with no money. tel$tra is cashed up, has plenty of lawyers & well practised in using them against pissants like aria. just to give this an extra bitterness, aria recently raided several isp/telco's including tel$tra, looking for evidence of mp3 pirates (using kazaa).
aria can issue press releases all it likes, but tel$tra will basically do what it likes....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]