Band Aid which produced the cover song of the 1984 hit "Do They Know It's Chrismas?" has successfully managed to get all of its retailers to sell its track for £1.49, well except Apple. They are expecting to raise £10 million ($19m) in aid to feed the starving millions in Africa and so far, they have even managed to get the UK government to agree to waive the VAT (Tax) on sales.
However these is only one reason for Apple to refuse selling the song - its very strict 79p fixed price policy. So far Apple has managed to keep its fixed pricing no matter how much fuss they had to put up with labels pressuring them to raise their prices. On the other hand, it seems rather appalling for Apple to not even allow a once-off exception for charity.
Since Apple refuses to sell this track, this leaves Apple customers stuck with either to purchase the track on CD or purchase it from a competing site without the ability to play the song on their iPod. Universal Music which is releasing the track announced that they are still in discussion with Apple in hope to come to an agreement. So far 10,000 download sales of the track have been made across other online music download stores.
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Apple iTunes is the only retailer refusing to sell the £1.49 track, which aims to raise cash for the starving millions in Africa.
Band Aid will not drop the cost of their track as they want to make as much money as possible. An industry insider said yesterday: "It all seems too much of a headache for Apple. |
While Apple may be doing this to show how strict their pricing policy is, this may be seen as a rather mean move by consumers who may get the impression that Apple's price policy is more important than the starving people in Africa.
Then again, maybe Apple has its track pricing hard coded into its software such that it would be impossible to sell one track at a different price without affecting the sales price on its entire catalogue. Now it seems like keeping a very tight price policy may not be such a good idea afer all.
Source: Mirror.co.uk
