AfterDawn: News

Apple playing dirty, tries to snuff Amazon MP3

Despite a gigantic lead in the online MP3 market, Apple appears to be playing dirty against Amazon MP3, using its clout with the record labels to try to snuff out Amazon's popular "Daily Deal" promotion.

In 2008, when Amazon MP3 first launched, the Daily Deal was paid for by Amazon, out of their own pockets, as a way to get traffic to the service. In 2009 however, says a label exec, "that promotion morphed into something where the labels make arrangements to provide an exclusive selling window with Amazon for a big release expected to do a lot of business on street date."



In exchange for the Daily Deal promotion, Amazon gets a one-day exclusive window for sales before street date, as long as digital marketing support through the artist's Web sites, or MySpace pages.

The same executive said about that situation (via Billboard): "When that happened, iTunes said, 'Enough of that s**t.' "

Since then, Apple has been "urging" labels to rethink the Daily Deal, while at the same time withdrawing marketing support for acts that were featured as Daily Deals.

Says another exec: "[Apple] are . . . diverting their energy from 'let's make this machine better' to 'let's protect what we got,'".

Apple, Amazon, Warner, EMI and Sony have not responded to the story yet.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 4 Mar 2010 13:15

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• 11 comments

• flyness

  Apple has been acting like a lil b*tch these last few months

  4.3.2010 15:46 #1

• jos22

  apple suck i will never buy an apple product or use the crap that is itunes

  4.3.2010 15:58 #2

• Josipher

  hate apple,cant help but want an iphone cause of the many apps.without the apps the phone sucks . in the meantime burn in hell steve jobs

  4.3.2010 19:08 #3

• Se7ven

  Apple chest is poked out pretty far these days.

  4.3.2010 19:13 #4

• blueboy09

  Originally posted by Se7ven: Apple chest is poked out pretty far these days. Yeah, pretty much. Apple thinks that since it's a "superior" company, that the rules don't apply to them. Money may talk, but a crash always befalls those who think they're invincible!! I for my part will have nothing to do with Apple, mainly b/c of this reason. - BLUEBOY

  4.3.2010 21:18 #5

• KSib

  Originally posted by flyness: Apple has been acting like a lil b*tch these last few monthsThis made me "lol" :)

  5.3.2010 02:17 #6

• KillerBug

  Originally posted by flyness: Apple has been acting like a lil b*tch these last few monthsHey, I bet you would be mad if a bunch of overpriced engineers starting bringing you exploding iPhones and a tablet that does not even have multitasking, along with a line of MACs where the best feature is the ability to run windows.

  5.3.2010 06:14 #7

• gixxer07

  Hasn't apple made enough money without trying to make a monopoly, Whatever happened to free enterprise...

  5.3.2010 08:28 #8

• siber

  Why make such a big deal of Company Names? If you want an mp3 player with the features you like, buy the one that meets them and which you can get for a fair price. Don't moan about it. If you want a "telephone", nothing but a "telephone", go for what is reliable and cheap. You wanna brag about your phone, sure, buy an I-P-H-O-N-E. I, personally don't give a F... If Apple succeeds in fooling many of you that they have the best, good for them...Look at the sales figures and see who's better at "marketing". Reverse them if you can.

  5.3.2010 12:16 #9

• 20TONS

  I will never own a "Crapple" product. They have too much DRM crap that limits my options. I want to be able to transfer music, movies, etc to any portable player I have when I want.

  5.3.2010 14:25 #10

• nprfan

  I heard that Apple may start selling lossless AAC. I hope Amazon plays it smarter, and offers FLAC instead.
  
  ... and at the same price as mp3, I might add. Then, they'll have my business. I would have replaced an old record today if was available in lossless.

  28.3.2010 09:42 #11