It always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside to hear high profile people cast negative sentiment towards an unpopular organisation, in this case towards the RIAA.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has accused the music giant of being greedy. While this is not news to most of us, it is reassuring to know that people of Job's stature share our opinion and are actually heard when they voice it.

Jobs was quoted "If they (RIAA) want to raise the prices, it means that they are getting greedy. If the price goes up, they (consumers) will go back to piracy and everybody loses."

"The executives sitting at the big table intimately know their own bottom lines, they know how much they exaggerate their loses, and they know how utterly sweet it is to charge $10 for music sans physical production costs, only to turn around and expect $2 for a phone ringtone to boot. I wish the music industry's problems were my problems. That's how good they have it, and almost everyone else knows it, too. This is, after all, the same industry found guilty of price fixing"

While Jobs' comments might carry some weight, it does smell of hypocrisy. After all, Jobs company is well known for forcing consumers to pay a premium for (often underperforming) hardware under the guise of 'innovative design and form factor'.

From a business standpoint it is probably a necessary evil in order to stay alive in a market which he still only holds around 5% share. But it still hurts the consumer.

But the main difference though between Jobs and the RIAA is that it is extremely difficult to pirate an iPod or G5, which means if you want the over priced hardware you will pay what ever Apple wants, indefinitely. Whereas if the RIAA increases music prices, they will easily force people back into the 'more affordable' realm of P2P.

Should the RIAA listen to Jobs? The iPod by it's very large capacity nature encourages people to fill them up. How many people do you know have filled up their iPods with legitimately aquired music? That would be in the order of around $7000 worth of music purchased through iTunes.

For once though I agree with something the Apple CEO has to say. The politics of locking people into an iPod/iTunes combination aside, what Jobs has done for online music is nothing short of outstanding so his opinion should count for something.

Now if he would drop the premium on iPods I might even consider getting one.