WebProNews

After meeting with major music labels seeking price hikes for Apple iTunes downloads, Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs used the popularity of Apple's iPod and iTunes, and logic, as leverage to swat those requests.

The Associated Press reports that Steve Jobs told reporters that some record companies were pressuring him raise the 99 cent per song price at iTunes, a move that Jobs said would encourage piracy while further painting record labels as greedy.

As record companies already save on manufacturing and marketing by providing access to songs over the Internet, a price hike would be reflective of a desire to milk this phenomenon for all it's worth.

"We're trying to compete with piracy, we're trying to pull people away from piracy and say, `You can buy these songs legally for a fair price,'" he said. "But if the price goes up a lot, they'll go back to piracy. Then everybody loses."

This isn't the first time record labels have tried to pressure Apple to raise prices. A little over a year ago, labels pushed Apple to raise the price of one song to between $1.25 and $2.99.

Luckily for music lovers, Apple has enough pull in the industry to deny extreme price hikes. With 22 million iPod owners that have legally downloaded over half a billion songs, losing that customer base would thwart pricey ambitions on its own, hurting Apple as well as record company.

Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.