As the music industry mourned the death of pop star Whitney Houston, the online music store iTunes was being criticized for making money over her death.
Entertainment website Digital Spy was reporting that iTunes users were prevented from downloading Whitney Houston's 2007 Ultimate Collection shortly after her death while a price update was in progress. After the price update the price of the album had doubled.
Fans as well as critics of Apple, the parent company of iTunes, screamed of "shameless exploitation" of situation.
Later news reports would clarify the situation stating that Sony, the owner of Whitney Houston's music collection had made the price adjustments, not Apple iTunes.
Sony says sorry
Three days later Sony has stated that the albums had been mistakenly mispriced and offered an apology.
Some folks feel that Sony was simply adjusting the prices of Houston's music to where it should have been all along, claiming that it was lowered to deeply discounted pricing in recent years as Houston's popularity had dropped.
Other opinions are that Sony's timing of the price increases illustrate how corporations will exploit any situation to increase their profits.
The actions by Sony illustrate how quickly an online store can react to world events. Whether or not it is appropriate to profit over the death of a pop star such as Whitney Houston makes for an interesting philosophical debate.
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