CUPERTINO, CA (Hypebot) – iTunes has always done things its own way. What its competitors did was not Apple's concern. After all, ITunes controls the vast majority of the download market.
But that's starting to change and Amazon MP3's Daily Deal is the target. The Daily Deal usually prices a current release for $1.99 – $3.99 for a single day. Sometime last year according to Billboard, Amazon began asking labels to give it a 1 day exclusive and digital marketing support as part of the Daily Deal package. "When that happened," according to one label exec, "iTunes said, 'Enough of that shit."
iTunes representatives have reportedly asked labels not to participate in Amazon's promotions and have withdrawn their own support for some releases featured as Daily Deals. "The whole issue is a kind of interesting dynamic," says one major label exec. "Amazon is fighting a guerrilla war against iTunes, and now iTunes is getting frustrated because they work hard to set up and promote a release weeks in advance of the street date, and then lo and behold, Amazon jumps in there with this deal of the day and scrapes off some of the cream."
