Is iTunes in Trouble?

September 1, 2007 in Technology by LwEEs

Lots of changes are bringing iTunes to the attention of the media, this time is not software related, but content related. The last piece of news is that iTunes is not carrying more NBC content, or should I say NBC is not selling content on iTunes anymore. Whichever way you want to see it, the consumer is the one that lose. The apparent negotiations to renew NBC-iTunes contract failed when allegedly NBC asked to sell their content at a higher price than the standard $1.99 per show.

That’s that, so where do we stand, this is not the first network to pull content from iTunes but the only one that made it public quickly. It was the largest content provider of shows for the iTunes store too, is fair to mention that apparently and allegedly NBC has plans for distributing their media via other venues. Variable pricing and digital rights management are kicking back the industry, hitting every major music distribution channel. With the upcoming event that Apple will hold this next Wednesday, I wonder if more companies will join iTunes or announce their retirement from the iTunes store.

Who’s next? The music industry has asked for variable pricing too, many times in fact. The only changes I’ve seen so far are those from EMI with their DRM free content at higher bit rate for $1.29 each song, while albums seem not to be affected since the pricing between DRM and DRM free is null. All in all, I feel that we, the consumer, is the only one that really miss the opportunity to get their content from one place. Shame on the industry that is striving to make our lives miserable placing content all around the web instead of having a more centralized environment, I would like to go just to one place and get all the media I need in one spot.

I hope that Steve Jobs have some ideas to deal with this, in the meantime what’s up with the movie sales. No one from apple has said anything, I guess they have sell what they expected. Personally, I’m still buying DVD’s and as long as I can’t burn downloaded movies for back up purposes, I’m not buying digital versions. What’s your take on this? Leave your comments to further discuss this madness. Thanks for reading.