Apple reportedly mulling all-you-can-eat iTunes

The Financial Times may have nailed one hell of a scoop Tuesday evening. According to the paper, Apple is considering an all-you-can-eat plan in which users would receive free access to iTunes "in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices."

Is Apple ready to offer its smorgasbord of songs in a single package deal?

(Credit: Apple)

The company reportedly is still in discussions, according to sources speaking on background to the FT.

"The 'all you can eat' model, a replica of Nokia's 'comes with music' deal with Universal Music last December, could provide the struggling recorded music industry with a much-needed fillip, and drive demand for a new generation of Apple's hardware.

"Apple would not comment on the plan, but executives familiar with the negotiations said they hinged on a dispute over the price the computer maker would be willing to pay for access to the labels' libraries.

"Nokia is understood to be offering almost $80 per handset to music industry partners, to be divided according to their share of the market. However, Apple has so far offered only about $20 per device, two executives said. 'It's who blinks first, and whether or not anyone does blink,' one executive said."

If accurate, this would mark a big about-face for Steve Jobs, who previously has dismissed the rental music model. So far this evening, nobody's been able to confirm the FT story. But the story has triggered a fury of interest over at Techmeme. For instance, VentureBeat's MG Siegler raises an interesting question: with iPod sales said to be slowing down, what's the sense of adding a premium to the products? What's more, he asks:

"Another question is if Apple really wants to complicate the store known for its simplicity?

If consumers who bought these 'unlimited' iPods have access to all the music for free, they'll still have to pay for all video content presumably. Also, what happens if someone doesn't want to go out and buy a new iPod to get this deal, do they opt-in by paying Apple $100? The FT report also suggests that a subscription package may only work with the iPhone and that such a deal would simply be added on to a user's monthly AT&T bill--so what about those users without iPhones?"

Hopefully, we'll be able to answer some of these questions with more clarity in a few hours. Stay tuned.

Editors' note, March 19, 7:45 AM PDT: News.com's Greg Sandoval now has the lowdown from a source close to the deal. See "Apple could split device sales with music labels.")

[sjkx]

Done right, a "subscription" package could be more cost-effective for listening to more music than you'd ever want or could afford to buy just to listen once or a couple times. And you could still purchase music for more frequent and unrestricted listening.

$100 for "unlimited" iTunes Store music access (skip the video, for now) would have more value to me than $100 of purchases with a significant percentage ending up collecting virtual dust.

[gerrrg]

A monthly subscription based upon tiered usage is a better business model than a flat fee for all-you-can-eat. All-you-can-eat will cause the price of songs on other sites to quickly sink to pennies per song to compete. At that point, you have to ask yourself, why not free music? I already get that with Slacker and Pandora.

[iBuzz]

Forget the monthly subscriptions. This model is better. You buy an iPod and then you get download access to all the songs in the iTunes Music Store for the life of your iPod. In a sense, you still own your music, and unless you lose your iPod or it breaks, no one can take your music away from you (unlike what happens when there is a glitch with subscription services and none of your music plays).

[Sac Tinko]

Monthly subscriptions for music will never work. If in 30 years I want to hear a song from my childhood, that I bought via subscription, what am I suppose to do, hope that the provider will still be around, so I can renew my subscription to hear the song? I want to own my music so I can listen to it now or in 5, 10, 15 years and I don't want to worry about losing that right if the record company goes bankrupt or if the service provider files Chapter 11.

[sjkx]

So, does a subscription service make it impossible for you to purchase what you want to own?

[inachu]

This is good as I don't know how many times I reinstall windows due to testing and such at home. I'd say I reinstall windows 4 to 6 times a year and I do not mind paying premium as I do not really care about saving music or other itunes data. This will save me lots of time and hard drive space in the long run.

[pjhenry1216]

You could always just partition your hard drive and put your music and other non-system data onto the second partition, thereby allowing it to be unaffected when you re-install windows. plus, i don't see how this saves you hard drive space other than you not always listening to the same music (download, reformat, forget to download it again). It wouldn't save you time cause you'd always be re-downloading. Partitioning would be your best bet. Just a tip.

[ryan.pollock]

A subscription music model would be huge for Apple. I'd gladly pay $15 / month to Apple for a subscription music service. (currently I pay Real this money)

In a way, their hand is being forced. We're entering a world where the iPhone will soon mean that you can listen to any song on demand through the internet. If Apple doesn't provide a subscription service, you can bet the Real will eat their lunch.

[sjkx]

Is it so hard to understand that multiple choices for consuming music can peacefully co-exist? Anyone who excludes someone's preferences by insisting theirs are the only valid ones seems selfishly arrogant. Discussions of how different choices can be better in certain situations is more useful and interesting than shallow claims of exclusive superiority.