Along With Apple, Amazon MP3, Others Hike Digital Song Prices

Seattle - While Apple (NASD: AAPL) got the most coverage for launching variable pricing yesterday at the iTunes Store, where top songs may now be priced at $1.29 and catalog tracks at 69 cents, the change affected much of the rest of the digital music retail market, with similar price hikes seen at Amazon MP3 (NASD: AMZN), RealNetworks' (NASD: RNWK) Rhapsody, Walmart.com (NYSE: WMT) ($1.24) and Lala.

Ars Technica noted that the price increases have not been uniform across all sites, as the Black Eyed Peas' new single "Boom Boom Pow" costs $1.29 on iTunes, but can be purchased for 99 cents at Amazon MP3, and for 89 cents from Lala.com.

NPD Group recently said that 16% of U.S. digital music purchasers bought tracks from the Amazon MP3 store last year.

Billboard reports that hip-hop tracks were the most likely to see a price hike at the iTunes Store, as ten of the current top 20 were raised in price to $1.29, compared with 29% of top country songs, 25% of top rock songs, and 13% of currently popular alternative tracks.