Sony Music Increased Whitney Houston’s Album Price Hours After Death
I’m going to take a big departure from my usual topics of ebooks, publishing and writing technology so I can dip my toes into the world of pop culture for a moment.
The tragic death of Whitney Houston has shocked the entertainment industry and left her fans in mourning. I like Whitney Houston’s music. She’s an incredible singer. The song “I Will Always Love You” was played at every school dance my middle school had. The song brings back a lot of memories.
It has been sad to see her descend into drug use over the years. She was self-destructing. Nobody likes to see that, especially when it happens to people with so much talent and promise.
The most disturbing thing I see when a big-name celebrity dies is all the profiteering that goes on in the wake of a death. Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about.
Did Sony Music Try To Profit From Her Death?
This is truly disgusting. There are reports that within hours after Houston’s death, Sony Music increased the price of her bestselling album The Ultimate Collection saying that the original price was wrong.
The Guardian Website reported that the price of that album increased by 60% on iTunes. While Sony Music denies the price hike had anything to do with Houston’s death. I say they are lying. It just cannot be a coincidence that the wholesale price increases right after her death.
Just like after the death of Michael Jackson, it was obvious that there’d be a large bump in Houston’s album sales. Anybody could see it coming. My question to Sony is: If this was simply a correction in pricing, couldn’t you have waited until a little until increasing your price? Why did you have to do it hours after her death?
It just seems a little convenient that Sony realized their price was too low right after Houston died, and then went on to raise their price fully knowing there’d be a backlash. Did they really expect consumers not to notice?
And I’m not letting Apple off the hook either. Yes, the wholesale price was increased, meaning the retail price had to increase as well. But given the circumstances, why didn’t Apple eat the difference (they can certainly afford it, being the most valuable company in the world), at least for a little while, until they could smack some sense into Sony?
This is just a bad situation all around. The world lost a great singer.
Increased Demand For Celebrity Products After Death
We’ve seen this with every high-profile celebrity death: The market sees a huge spike in demand for anything and everything that has to do with that celebrity.
I remember when Michael Jackson died all the bookstores promptly displayed his biographies, albums, posters and everything else right in front of the store. It was the first thing people saw when they walked in.
I’m sure part of it was the store’s accomodation for increased demand of Michael Jackson products. But I also think there’s another part of it that stores want to profit off of it as well.
It’s a double-edged sword: If a store does nothing to help customers find a recently-deceased celebrity’s products, they are turning customers off and not meeting demand. If they do promote celebrity products, they are seen as profiting off of the celebrity’s death. It’s a lose-lose situation for retailers.
Profiting From Death
Then there are the more obvious examples of people profiteering off of a celebrity death. People are throwing together ebooks hours after a celebrity dies. They can even have an ebook for sale on Amazon on the same day.
Whitney Houston is no exception. According to a LA Times article, there’s no shortage of people looking to profit from death:
The 14 newly-published Whitney Houston Kindle e-books range in price from 99 cents to $9.99. There is a book comprised of fan tributes, a 10-page handwriting analysis, a German edition of a gossipy book about Houston and ex-husband Bobby Brown, and a book of new poems about her. Of course, there are a couple of unauthorized biographies, hastily stitched together. In fact, one is made up entirely of Wikipedia pages about Houston, her films, and her music; author Ira Krakow (“The Lady Gaga Story,” “The Amy Winehouse Story”) charges $3.99 for it.
Read the last part of that quote: Somebody actually copied a few Wikipedia articles for an “ebook” and is charging $3.99 for it. The “author” (and I use that term loosely) is Ira Krakow.
As of this writing I could not find the Whitney Houston book by Krakow. I found the book on Amazon, but I will not link to it. I did find the Amy Winehouse book. The sad part is, he doesn’t make it any secret that he just copied articles from Wikipedia, and is charging $2.99
Here’s the ebook synopsis, copied right from Amazon:
The biography of the late English singer Amy Winehouse (1983 – 2011), from her Wikipedia page. Formatted for the Kindle by Ira Krakow, with all hyperlinks and images preserved and with the original Table of Contents. Text is from en.wikipedia.org available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ – See Terms of use for details.
The bold emphasis is mine. I don’t need to say much more other than there will always be people with no problems profiting off the deaths of celebrities. And there will always be a market for them.
Note: I’m no longer an Amazon affiliate. Any resulting sale from clicking on an Amazon link on this site will not result in me getting a commission.
Related Posts
- Love my Sony Pocket Edition Reader, hate the Sony ebook software
- Will book publishers learn from music and newspaper industries?
- Borders to start selling more of Sony’s eReader
- Books, Music and Memories
- Amazon’s Death Blow To Publishing Industry
Read More: Misc.
