Apple CEO Steve Jobs Attacks 'Greedy' Music Companies

via BusinessWeek Even though the recording industry is already sick of him, Steve Jobs gave them more reason to feel that way at Apple Expo in Paris. He revealed that the recording companies are already making more money selling songs on iTunes than they would by selling a song with a CD. He did qualify it by saying that only when you take into account all the marketing, distribution and manufacturing costs, is iTunes more profitable than selling CDs.

His rationale is that they are currently trying to fight piracy and that raising prices a lot would drive people back to piracy. I guess the question comes down to whether $.50 is considered "a lot." The recording industry counters that the problem with per song downloads is that they get less total revenue. When they sell a CD the consumer only really wants a few songs on the CD. So if they can buy the songs individually then they will spend less money.

There is also mention that even though the ROKR isn't that great, better phones are in the pipeline and that MacTel PCs are still on track to ship next June.