Sony Music Raised Prices On Whitney Houston's Music... Less Than 30 Minutes After She Died
from the shameful dept
It's no secret that the major record labels are a business where the bottom line is everything. However, they like to present themselves as something much more than that. They talk about lofty ideals of delivering culture, of sustaining art and of helping artists. But, when tragedy strikes... dollar signs seem to win over all. According to various reports, within 30 minutes of Whitney Houston being reported dead, Sony Music jacked up the prices on her Ultimate Collection album on iTunes and Amazon.You have to think the price dropping back down was due to someone, somewhere realizing just how crass that looked.But instead of reverence in the wake of Houston’s passing, Sony chose to raise the price of one of her most popular hits collections. The Ultimate Collection album in the U.K. jumped in price by more than 60 percent from £4.99 to £7.99 within 30 minutes of Houston’s death, according to Digital Spy. The album price fell back down to £4.99 some time during the weekend, but it’s unclear when it happened.
Fans originally blamed Apple for the price hike on iTunes, but The Guardian is reporting that Apple automatically raised the price after Sony Music “lifted the wholesale price” of the album.
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Filed Under: death, music, prices, whitney houston
Companies: amazon, apple, sony music
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That is great news!
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Surprised? I'm not.
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Re: Surprised? I'm not.
Whitney Houston was, by some reports, living on advances sent over and over again by the labels. Basically, she was not a song writer, only a performer. Many of her most popular songs were written by others, performed by others, and she was only a voice on her own songs.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2101014/Whitney-Houston-Dolly-Parton-set-rake-milli ons-song-I-Will-Always-Love-You.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Basically, Dolly Parton gets a little more rich because Whitney Houston died.
This is why it's hard sometimes for people (especially Mike) to understand that the music business isn't exactly a straight line affair. It's not a single person writing a song, recording a song, and selling a song, but often a complex combination of song writers, studio musicians, producers, and singers to bring out a new finished product song to market. Because Whitney Houston was only a singer, her income from recorded music is much lower than many. Her only real income would come from performing live, something she had rarely done in the last decade.
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Re: Re: Surprised? I'm not.
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Re: Re: Surprised? I'm not.
I'm guessing Mike knows what a production studio is, and probably also a decent amount about the few remaining major labels.
Pop stars have been getting created/used by the major labels for the last few decades. If it wasn't for the internet and new business models, it would be even easier today for record labels to take advantage of artists.
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Who cares? That doesn't justify anything and the market forces don't care.
That said, I'm not actually broken up that Sony jacked the prices for a bit. Seems like a good response that the new distribution model allows for in this day and age.
Clearly artificial demand was going to be up and they responded to maximize profits.
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Re: Re: Surprised? I'm not.
So, you finally admit that artists need to work for a living instead of sitting around trying to get rich of stuff they did 30 years ago?
Interesting...
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Re: Re: Re: Surprised? I'm not.
Fuck Paul, you are such a twit at times.
Read carefully. Because Whitney Houston was only a singer, performer, singing other people's songs, she had to perform to truly make income.
Dolly Parton has made money (and will make much more money) as a song writer for those songs than Whitney made for only singing them on the recording.
Had Whitney Houston written more of her own music, if she had more song writing credits, and if she was in a position to obtain much more money for her work, she would have not been as obligated to perform as often - and could have dedicated more of her time to the craft of writing songs.
Sometimes you are worse than Mike when it comes to be obtuse!
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"living on advances sent over and over again by the labels.... Her only real income would come from performing live, something she had rarely done in the last decade."
Which is it? Was she laying around making money of Sony's advances not really doing anything or was she too busy performing to write songs? Or do you just make shit up as you go?
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You don't make money on advances. You live off of them, just like using your credit cards to pay for life. The bill does come due.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Surprised? I'm not.
So, straight to personal attacks again. A class act, as ever.
"Because Whitney Houston was only a singer, performer, singing other people's songs, she had to perform to truly make income. "
Exactly! Which is why people object when you go into other threads whining that singers can't sit on their asses and make money from albums they recorded 20 years ago because "OMG piracy". Let's face it, you only launch your attacks as an AC so it's not so easy for people to point out your blatant contradictions and misdirections.
"Dolly Parton has made money (and will make much more money) as a song writer for those songs than Whitney made for only singing them on the recording."
How many songs? If it's only the one, why do you focus on her? You seem to think you have a point, but yet again you're deluding yourself.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Surprised? I'm not.
One talent, is not worth more than another, considering it all came from god, this we know with no reservation, yet we treat them as non equals. I don't know if all this is fact, that she was almost penniless , instead of the reported 35'ish millions in the bank, but if true, maybe that was pressing on her, causing the need to 'escape' through drugs and alcohol, which may then have stopped her from breathing on her own ( as in automatically). I guess we will know soon enough. Regardless though,I feel so bad for her daughter etc., though with god,family and great friends, she will recover with time. I did, and she /they will too ;)
Capitalism hurts many, was never the intent god had in mind creating the universe for , and its time it was abolished, much like ,- slavery. Im sure it won't happen overnight, but if you think about it, the great thing whitney could have done, considering stress would have been diminished by leaps and bounds, crys for change. We are all gods children,and we deserve better. Her daughter she did, her mother and all else whom intimately knew and loved her directly.
Change won't happen though unless we as a society, make it so, so get invovled and talk about it happening. What I refer to, is very similar to the 'resource based' economy you may have heard about.
Life should be a shared experience where no one person has more power than another, where we all exist freely though not with shared responsibility, stress free ( within a near perfect system, of course) and for the betterment of everyone else. Only then will true compassion and love be available for all, without having to pay the ultimate 'price' for it.
I don't care who you are, you are no better than your neighbor, deserve love no less and the basic 'rights' afforded us by being children of god, and until society reflects that, sad stories like Whitney will continue to mount up on us all, and sadly reflect the current status of us as a species, meant for far greater things than this. Who among us really believes, that gifts like that from our creator, deserve this kind of outcome ? ;)
RIP dear soul- may your family and friends be comforted, as you comforted others , when hearing your god given voice.
We are all gods children, and are worth far, far more than the lump sum we earn everyday , just to get by in a world dominated by power and greed.
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[...] to bring out a new finished product song to market [...]
"Product". Not music, not art, not creativity, just "product". Bland, interchangeable, disposable product -- whether it's a trite pop song or a work of genius.
"Market". Thus implying that the goal must be to sell it, that it not only has no value if it isn't sold for profit, that it doesn't even exist.
It's sad that soulless profiteers like this exist. They don't care about the music or the musicians: they only care about money. But they do exist, and it's at moments like these that we get a glimpse into the vast, arid wastelands of their minds.
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Re: Re: Surprised? I'm not.
Why John Lock principals are not fallowed here?
If you did the work you own all the benefits that came from it is not that what copyright was supposed to do?
Instead people sliced and diced the market to create a lot of minor roles that they could use to rip off other and you call that a good thing?
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Re: Surprised? I'm not.
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Is the wholesale price increase above and beyond the normal wholesale price for albums, or was the existing wholesale price abnormally low because of discounting of an artist who was (by most accounts) on the sunset side of her career?
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It even scales.
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Too many ACs on this board, it's hard to tell who's the shill, who's the sarcastic one and who'e the intelligent one.
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/sarcasm
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So sad.
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Now you know why Windows has a Recycle bin instead of a trash can. We need to conserve our natural resources.
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I am on a permanent "Black March".
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Trajectory pricing?
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Re: Trajectory pricing?
Now, for digital goods, this is a great strategy to destroy a swell of interest from the public...
Someone tells their friends that they just got Houston's album for 4.99 a couple days prior, so they go to buy their own copy only to see that it's nearly double the price now... "fuck 'em, I'll just torrent a copy".
It likely neutered the possible sales count potential by raising the price.
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Oh who am I kidding, of course they won't, they're just greedy for cash.
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Both get a cut, small as it is...
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No, Dolly Parton just happened to write her most famous song, her best selling song, and other writers actually wrote her other material. Whitney Houston wasn't really a singer song writer, just a singer.
Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Your_Baby_Tonight
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Whitney_Houston_(album)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_(album)
Three examples, scroll down to the track listings and credits. Try to find "whitney houston" credited on any of them. You won't find her.
Performance royalties are very low compared to songwriter royalties. The royalty money created for airplay / internet use is distributed to the song writer and the publishing company. Whitney would get a small amount (if any) out of the publishing side. She would get money per album sale, with the usual "against expenses, against advance". stuff.
The song writers always do better on the recorded music side, because they have less upside (they can't "take it on the road").
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(Disclaimer for ACs - I don't actually think that Paul is stupid. In fact I believe in the opposite.)
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Sucking money from others work is no way to go through life son.
You want to get paid you go do the work and get paid you don't let others do the work and try to extract money from them.
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After all, they're the ones stealing from artists.
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I love you, internet.
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No BlueRay
No Games that contain Securom
No Sony devices whatsoever
No Music or Movies that they have their name on
Bankrupt Sony!!!
Bankrupt Sony!!!
Bankrupt Sony!!!
Bankrupt Sony!!!
Bankrupt Sony!!!
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Music and movies from Sony, I can agree with you on.
They actually make decent electronics though. Since I'm not a big console gamer, I'll never own a PS3. The TV's, cameras and Blue-ray players are pretty decent.
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Got it! I'll let them know your opinion of them.
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Meanwhile, the files on iTunes are there for as long the service exists or sony decides to remove the files, and they'll never run out of them unless that happens, so overpricing it right after the singer's death looks immoral.
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1) People do not act as rational agents
2) People do not have perfect information
This means that the forces that would theoretically stop a capitalist free market being captured by the first internal force to gain an advantage don't exist (ie people don't know when such a thing is going to happen so they can't behave rationally by choosing to stop purchasing from that company and buying from a competitor instead).
In theory market regulation is supposed to solve this by having a government act as a rational agent with information that is closer to perfect, in practice what tends to happen is regulatory capture (eg Copyright industries basically writing copyright law).
And in so far as it goes both Copyright and Patents, as they exist today, are inherently incompatible with free market capitalism which relies on alternative suppliers existing in order for people to be able to avert market capture by means of rational actions.
This doesn't mean that copyright and patents are inherently bad though, or even anti-capitalist, you could theoretically have patents with mandatory licensing laws in conjunction with trade secrets for example (ie you can either share your work and get paid for it or you can keep it secret but get nothing if someone else reproduces it but you can't try to do both).
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why does anyone care?
When Andy Warhol died, every gallery in the world raised the prices of his works dramatically.
Anyone who would run out and buy a Whitney album just because she died, is stupid enough to deserve being ripped off IMO.
big yawn on this story
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Tacky but I'm not at all suprised
The irony is that I remember hearing years ago that artists are more valuable dead than alive. Their paintings, songs, books and all the rest come into more demand as people discover them from all the headlines about the death and the anguish in certain parts of the arts community about it.
Whitney may not have released a hit in years and may never have written a song but like Frank Sinatra she was a fantastic interpreter of songs. In the end, though, she wasn't Sinatra. She became supermarket tabloid fodder and will continue to be when they get going on her.
She was a talented singer and interpreter of songs but like many her life collapsed around her due to bad decisions.
Sony's move was tacky, distasteful but hardly unexpected. That doesn't mean they don't deserve to be called out for it. It's another example of a RIAA member company not giving a damn about the artist or their family when there's a back to be made. After all, there are shareholders to consider, you know!
Nor does it have anything to do with scarcity. It has everything to do with greed. And I don't expect less from Sony in any of their business ventures.
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They had to raise prices! Her death shaved a good 30-40 years off the copyright term on her songs. They have to make that money up somehow if they intend to have enough cash on hand to bribe lawmakers into passing the next copyright extension law to make up the difference! (But only to "protect the artist", of course)
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At least they didn't raise them 30 minutes before... because it is Sony and well Sony tends to mess things up... Now they don't have to try and explain the hike just prior to her death.
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Shameful
I say people in Sony don't respect the dead. What a bunch of vultures!
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Vultures
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crass?
Er ... don't you mean "realizing just how crass that was"?
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Re: crass?
No. They don't mind that it was crass, they just don't want bad PR. So how crass it looks is the right way to phrase it.
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