JOBS TO MUSIC INDUSTRY: LET'S NOT GET GREEDY

Steve Jobs has issued a public statement aimed at the RIAA cartel who are seeking to try and ramp prices up on iTunes: don't stamp on the golden goose.

Jobs, who has become the biggest music retailer in the world more-or-less by accident, was responding to mutterings on the part of the big labels about charging more for popular songs on the iTunes store:

"If they want to raise the prices, it means that they are getting greedy," said Jobs, chief executive of Apple, at a news conference in Paris on Tuesday.

"If the price goes up, they (consumers) will go back to piracy and everybody loses," he said.

It's going to be a strange experience for record labels, being told "No"; it's not clear if they'll try and force a move through anyway. At present, Apple sell eight out of every ten digital downloads in the US, and if labels want to be able to sell into the lucrative iPod market, they've got two choices - stick with Jobs, or else remove DRM from their songs. It would seem that - for now - Apple have the upper hand.

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