Despite a gigantic lead in the online MP3 market, Apple appears to be playing dirty against Amazon MP3, using its clout with the record labels to try to snuff out Amazon's popular "Daily Deal" promotion.
In 2008, when Amazon MP3 first launched, the Daily Deal was paid for by Amazon, out of their own pockets, as a way to get traffic to the service. In 2009 however, says a label exec, "that promotion morphed into something where the labels make arrangements to provide an exclusive selling window with Amazon for a big release expected to do a lot of business on street date."
In exchange for the Daily Deal promotion, Amazon gets a one-day exclusive window for sales before street date, as long as digital marketing support through the artist's Web sites, or MySpace pages.
The same executive said about that situation (via Billboard): "When that happened, iTunes said, 'Enough of that s**t.' "
Since then, Apple has been "urging" labels to rethink the Daily Deal, while at the same time withdrawing marketing support for acts that were featured as Daily Deals.
Says another exec: "[Apple] are . . . diverting their energy from 'let's make this machine better' to 'let's protect what we got,'".
Apple, Amazon, Warner, EMI and Sony have not responded to the story yet.
In exchange for the Daily Deal promotion, Amazon gets a one-day exclusive window for sales before street date, as long as digital marketing support through the artist's Web sites, or MySpace pages.
The same executive said about that situation (via Billboard): "When that happened, iTunes said, 'Enough of that s**t.' "
Since then, Apple has been "urging" labels to rethink the Daily Deal, while at the same time withdrawing marketing support for acts that were featured as Daily Deals.
Says another exec: "[Apple] are . . . diverting their energy from 'let's make this machine better' to 'let's protect what we got,'".
Apple, Amazon, Warner, EMI and Sony have not responded to the story yet.
