By now, we all know all too well how the music industry loves to whine incessantly about how internet leeches are bleeding it dry, and how it’s been trying to get its bought and paid for henchmen in Washington to pass awful legislation like SOPA and PIPA so it can basically be instated as the internet’s overlord. So it’s easy to hate the pricks on the basis of that alone.
But then you throw in the death montage from last night’s Grammys — a segment of the show that felt so much like SOPA/PIPA infomercial that it led one of the commenters in our open thread to note: “All these artists died because Steve Peterson of Albany, NY downloaded an MP3 WITHOUT paying” — and then it becomes even harder to feel any sympathy at all for them.
And if THAT weren’t enough, there’s this: 30 minutes after news of Whitney Houston’s death broke, Sony Music jacked up the price of Houston’s The Ultimate Collection album by 60% on iTunes and Amazon to apparently cash in on the rush of downloads sure to come following her death.
Reports Next Web:
It appears that within 30 minutes of Houston’s death becoming public, the price of the artist’s The Ultimate Collection album (released in 2007) rose from £4.99 to £7.99. Some iTunes users told DigitalSpy that as the price change propagated, the album became unavailable to download.
Immediately, users began accusing Apple of taking advantage of the singer’s death, ramping up pricing in order to profit from the announcement. By Sunday evening, the album had returned to its original price…As it turns out, the Sony Music was responsible for the price increase after it increased the wholesale price of The Ultimate Collection.
Combine all of this with the “morally derelict” industry’s continuing to force-feed Chris Brown on us, and man is it hard to fight the urge to stay home and torrent a sh*tload of music tonight.
(Image via Amazon)
