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How Apple Got Itself Out of Some Trouble in the UK. A whole bunch of British rock royalty recently remade Do They Know Its Christmas?, with proceeds to go to charity. Apple’s iTunes refused to carry it, because everywhere else it’s being sold for twice the normal price for a song download so as to raise more money, and Apple has a policy that every song it sells costs the same. So this was turning into a big anti-Apple story in the British press:
As you might imagine, many people took umbrage at Apples scrooge-like stance. How dare it deny charity for the sake of some arbitrary pricing policy?
In a surprise move that got them out of trouble, Apple decided to sell the song, at the usual price, and contribute the difference to charity out of its own pocket.
Also surprisingly, the rest of the UK online music business—instead of following suit—decided to slam Apple:
You can imagine the screams of outrage from those merchants who were selling the song for twice the price. A spokesman for Napster voiced the industrys reaction thusly:
We are pleased to see that iTunes has finally agreed to sell the Band Aid 20 single, but disappointed theyve chosen to use the biggest charity event of the year to undercut every other music retailer in the UK.
...If Napster is so concerned about this it need do one thing only: Play the same game. Theres nothing to stop it from charging 69 pence for the song and dipping into petty cash to make up the difference.
After all, its for charity.
It’s a pretty good story, isn’t it?
