Once upon a time, you had two fundamental classes of journalists. One group worked for regular newspapers or broadcast facilities, plying their trade; the others were employed by the supermarket tabloids, offering up gossip, real and otherwise, about various and sundry celebrities, political figures and notables from the business world. While there are gray areas, […]

So it finally happened. After an unknown period of back and forth wrangling, Apple evidently caved to the music industry’s demands to institute a multiple tier pricing structure on iTunes. In exchange, the three remaining major recording companies gave Apple the gift they’ve wanted for so long, and that’s the ability to offer their music […]

When the iTunes Music Store (that’s before they added movies and TV shows) first appeared, the pricing structure was absolutely rigid. Steve Jobs, they said, was obsessive about simplicity, witness the fairly limited Mac lineup since he took over Apple. So it would be now and forever 99 cents per song. When TV shows were […]

At the time they said it was probably a publicity stunt, but it appears that Steve Jobs had the right idea when he suggested that the music industry would be better off without putting DRM on the tracks sold by online retailers. Sure, Monday’s agreement with EMI may just be a grand experiment that could […]