The Music Industry Sets Sights on a New Target: iTunes

Those pesky music industry execs are at it again - and this time they’re looking not to take on file-swapping college kids or bootlegged CDs.  Their next target?  Apple’s wildly popular iTunes music service, which revolutionized and breathed life back into the (legal) music market with their simple pricing scheme (.99 per song, no matter what song it is) and easy-to-use service.  The industry, who once hailed iTunes as a savior of sorts, now seem to have changed their… well… tune.

A sore point for some music executives is the fact that Apple generates much more money selling iPod players than it does as a digital music retailer, leading to complaints that Mr. Jobs is profiting more from tracks downloaded to fill the 21 million iPods sold so far than are the labels that produced the recordings.

Andrew Lack, the chief executive of Sony BMG, discussed the state of the overall digital market at a media and technology conference three months ago and said that Mr. Jobs “has got two revenue streams: one from our music and one from the sale of his iPods.”

“I’ve got one revenue stream,” Mr. Lack said, joking that it would require a medical professional to locate. “It’s not pretty.”

Excuse me while I laugh myself stupid.  I’m sure Mr. Lack is nowhere near the soup kitchen, if he’s the chief executive of Sony BMG.  I read things like this and just about always fail to see where these top-dollar executives find the sense of entitlement they always seem to develop as soon as anyone besides them is making any money.

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