Variable pricing on iTunes: Day One

Yesterday saw Apple's iTunes Store finally go entirely DRM-free, but that also meant the introduction of variable pricing – which in the US, means three price points for iTunes downloads: $0.69, existing price $0.99 and $1.29.Introduced due to pressure from the major labels, variable iTunes pricing has launched at an awkward time. Only 5% of music downloads are legal according to the IFPI, and there's a global recession, so reward that minority of digital music purchasers by… whacking 30% on the price of the most popular songs? Strange logic.However, the labels are putting a different spin on it, with Billboard reporting that “for every one song they raise to $1.29, they will be reducing 10 songs to 69 cents”.Which sounds great, although The Register spent a bit of time digging yesterday, and found that despite claims like this from the labels and Apple, “those bargain-basement tunes seem to be few and far between”. Even Vanilla Ice has hung onto his 99-cent track price.Back to Billboard, though, and a label exec who makes another claim for why consumers should welcome variable pricing: “We're thinking outside of the disc to reach a new generation of consumers who are able to consume music [...]