APPLE’S STEVE JOBS TO LABELS: YOU’RE GREEDY!

Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs acknowledged publicly for the first time today that a number of record companies were pressuring him to raise the price of song downloads above they 99-cent price they have had since the inception of the iTunes Music Store.

Record companies already make a higher margin through an iTunes sale versus a CD with all its associated manufacturing and distribution costs, Jobs reasoned while addressing reporters at the opening of the Paris Apple Expo. “So if they want to raise the price, it just means they’re getting a little greedy,” Jobs said, according to reports.

Jobs also warned that increasing the price of iTunes tracks would only encourage continued online piracy. “If the price goes up, they [consumers] will go back to piracy and everybody loses,” he said.

Meanwhile, Apple iPod division Sr. VP Jon Rubinstein told reporters that there wasn’t currently sufficient demand for the company to add a radio tuner to the iPod.

And asked whether Apple would be unveiling an all-Apple-built iTunes cell phone following the very lukewarm response to the just-released, iTunes-equipped Motorola Rokr phone, Jobs said simply, “We do not say anything about future products. 'We work on them in secret, then we announce them.”