The Stones and Starbucks.

This Thanksgiving, The Rolling Stones will release an album of rare tracks in partnership with Starbucks and the group's Virgin Records label, who will simultaneously realese the album in traditional music stores. This nonexclusive deal differs from recent controversial arrangements Starbuck has had with other major artists. Singer Alanis Morissette allowed Starbucks to sell her most recent album six weeks before everyone else, resulting in many chains ripping her albums off their racks in protest. The same situation happed to The Stones in 2003 when they gave Best Buy an exclusive sales window for their DVD package. Starbucks has recently tried to boost revenue by adding CDs in its stores and has had big success with it, selling 730,000 of 3.1million copies of the Ray Charles "Genius Loves Company" album.

What is the opportunity cost of exclusively selling major artist albums only in Starbucks? Would artists make more money if they continued to offer their albums everywhere? Is this exclusive deal fair for other traditional music store competitors? How does this effect the market? How is demand effected by this exclusive deal?