[CUBE] iTunes music store

[a l a n t h o m p s o n]

bandwidth.  and disk space for the storage of all those files.

i think apple circumvented the riaa by going straight to the copyright 
holders.  the development costs are amortized, and largely complete.  
there's system administration and upkeep of the system, and paying all 
those temp workers to encode all those music files... credit card 
transactions are typically 3% of the cost of goods sold, but i don't 
know if that same amount applies to such a small purchase fee.  there 
might be a minimum fee.

the biggest cost is to the record companies/copyright holders, second 
to bandwidth, third the upkeep of the system then perhaps tied with 
disk space cost, and lastly, the encoding crew.

perhaps they're paying .45 cents to the copyright owners, and somehow 
finding margins in the rest?



On Monday, April 28, 2003, at 07:35 PM, Eagle wrote:

> who knows what else?