Music executives call iTunes higher prices a "PR nightmare"

In a highly questionable move, Apple executives have announced that the company will be increasing their iTunes song prices by 30 percent.
At a time when people are trying to cut back on expenses this plan, which blatantly asks customers to pay more for the same product, seems nonsensical and risky from a public relations aspect.
Starting April 7, iTunes will charge $1.29 for many of their popular songs and 64 cents for older or less popular songs. Apple executives hope that altering the prices will promote the sale of package deals instead of individual song purchasing.
Music labels have been urging iTunes to raise their prices, but this was a move that Steve Jobs had thus resisted because of potential harm it could do to sales. However, Apple’s decision to go through with this now seems like terrible timing.
Another issue is the fact that iTunes is penalizing the already shrinking market of people who are willing to pay for music and squeezing them for more cash. If this plan back fires it could end up alienating their customers and sending them away to the multitude of music piracy sites, therefore hurting iTunes’ sales and worsening the situation for the record labels.
If you want to improve your business model you’ve got to follow the trends and be aware of your competition. Raising prices when your biggest competition is offering the same thing for free doesn’t do either one of those things.
Either way, I hope iTunes has their army of pr people ready because after April 7, there will be a reaction and it may not be the one that Apple was hoping for.