Apple Shifts iTunes Pricing; $0.69 Tracks MIA 429
Hodejo1 writes "Steve Jobs vowed weeks ago that when iTunes shifted to a tiered price structure in April, older tracks priced at $0.69 would outnumber the contemporary hits that are rising to $1.29. Today, several weeks later, iTunes made the transition. While the $1.29 tracks are immediately visible, locating cheaper tracks is proving to be an exercise in futility. With the exception of 48 songs that Apple has placed on the iTunes main page, $0.69 downloads are a scarce commodity. MP3 Newswire tried to methodically drill down to unearth more of them only to find: 1) A download like Heart's 34-year-old song Barracuda went up to $1.29, not down. 2) Obscure '90s Brit pop and '50s rockabilly artists — those most likely to benefit from a price drop — remained at $0.99. 3) Collected tracks from a cross-section of 1920s, '30s, and '40s artists all remained at $0.99. Finally, MP3 Newswire called up tracks in the public domain from an artist named Ada Jones who first recorded in 1893 on Edison cylinder technology. The price on all of the century-old, public-domain tracks remained at $0.99. (The same tracks are available for free on archive.org.) The scarcity of lower-priced tracks may reflect the fact that the labels themselves decide which price tier they want to pursue for a given artist; and they are mostly ignoring the lower tier. Meanwhile, Amazon's UK site has decided to counter-promote their service by dropping prices on select tracks to 29 pence ($0.42)."
Forty-Two? Forty-Two?? (Score:3, Funny)
It looks like that really is the answer.
Re:No, I'm not surprised. (Score:2, Funny)
They couldn't even manage to put the logo right side up either.
Heart had a hit song when? (Score:5, Funny)
"A download like Heart's 34-year-old song Barracuda...."
I bought this song when it was released. Thanks for making me feel old.
Re:No rhyme or reason... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Funny)
iTunes is a bloated, poorly designed turd for you to organize your collection
Corrected that for you, Captain Obvious.
Next you're going to shout at the top of your lungs how fantastic that POS Amarok software is and it will trump iTunes.
Re:Surprise? (Score:4, Funny)
What, that 1 Euro is the same as 1 Dollar?
Re:Media is overpriced, pay-per-unit model is dyin (Score:3, Funny)
NOBODY is going to spend $6,000 on their music collection.
Some idiots spend that much on a cable!
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:When the drugs wear off.... (Score:3, Funny)