I thought the recent announcement from Apple and EMI was really interesting. Apparently there will be more DRM free music available directly from iTunes. There is a catch, however, it looks like there will be a premium added to the price of the music ($1.29). Of course you can elect to purchase the DRM version of the music, which will be lower quality, at the regular price of 99 cents.
Tracks that you may have already purchased with DRM could be ‘upgraded’ to DRM less MP3’s for 30 cents. It has also been rumored that older less popular tracks will be available for less than standard 99 cent.
In keeping with this new found musical hierarchy I wanted to suggest several pricing bands the music companies should consider ;)
| ARTIST QUALITY | SUGGESTED PRICE | DESCRIPTION |
| Premium | $1.29 | Premium artists who provide high quality music for the majority of their careers. They have helped to transform their genres and will be listened to 40 years from now. Examples - Beatles; Earth, Wind and Fire; Miles Davis; AC DC; James Brown; Rolling Stones; Marvin Gaye… |
| Good | $0.99 | Good artists with moments of greatness*. They will be in our collection but we will probably not listen to them 40 years from now. Examples – U2; Jack Johnson; Run-DMC; Metallica; Angie Stone; Jill Scott; Prince… |
| Basement | $0.29 | These are the inexplicably popular artists at the bottom of the barrel that makes listening to the radio so painful. Examples - Sade; o+>; White Snake; Color Me Bad; Creed; Kenny G; Michael Bolton; Yanni; Bon Jovi; MC Hammer… |
| Barely Music | -$0.49 | Anybody who downloads these artists should be immediately given a credit for having to store this level of garbage on their hard drives. That fact that energy is being consumed transporting the 0’s and 1’s associated with these file means that someone is wasting not only valuable resources but also their precious life. Examples – Rick Astley; Vanilla Ice; Milli Vanilli; David Hasselhoff; Britny Fox… |
* I quote from Rocky III – "You fight great, but I'm a great fighter." - Apollo
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