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)."
Re:Surprise? (Score:5, Informative)
There is no competition between different labels to sell the same product (song)
TFS mentions tracks in the public domain. Anyone can sell those tracks - how do you explain the pricing there? That can't be the Label's bullying poor defenceless Apple.
Re:Guitar Hero (Score:5, Informative)
Except that the whole "sell the crap for cheap" part is missing.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
You can buy your music from amazon and just import it into itunes. iTunes is a database for you to organize your collection. iTunes music store is the store.
captcha: monogamy
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Informative)
Just use subscription services... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Who cares? (Score:1, Informative)
iTunes is a bloated, poorly designed turd for you to organize your collection
Corrected that for you, Captain Obvious.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Might have been mentioned but... (Score:1, Informative)
Please correct me if i'm wrong!!
They have since added that functionality.
Love my iPod - Hate iTunes. (Score:5, Informative)
I reluctantly purchased an ipod a few years ago. I didn't know just how much Id grow to love this thing. I love being able to take tunes with me where-ever I go. Then my laptop crashed, I was able to get all my tunes off the HD but wasnt able to get them all loaded back onto the iPod from the fresh XP installation on the same LT.
ALL of the songs I purchased without DRM I am unable to get back onto my iPod as well as a few others as I changed my password from time to time and cant remember which PW I used when I purchased certain tracks.
So, iTunes sucks major ass. You can't tell me that Apple doesn't have a record of the songs I purchased over the years. I can't download again one's I've already purchased. It's BS.
Now, I purchase all my tracks on CD, rip them using cdparanoia and copy to my iPod. iTunes manages the mp3s I create for my own personal use and my podcasts/vidcasts.
Keep your money as well as your sanity - rip CDs for personal use and dont buy from Apple.
Amazon has quickly matched the higher prices (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Variable Pricing Not the Feature to Have Eviden (Score:2, Informative)
GH3 actually. ;-) GH2 had "Crazy on You". (I know this because (1) Crazy on You starts out with a really cool and fun opening riff, and (2) for a while Barracuda was the only song in the first few sets that I couldn't 5-star.
Re:Surprise? (Score:5, Informative)
As I'm currently researching a tangential issue for a journal article right now, I have found numerous cases and pronouncements from Congress that if the song file is transferred (as distinguished from streamed), it is a public distribution, not a public performance.
Thus, ASCAP should not be implicated when you're selling tracks (as distinguished from streaming radio).
Yes, I know from a technical standpoint there isn't much difference between streaming and transferring a 4MB MP3 file with speeds the way they are now over the net.
However, it basically breaks down to: a streamed MP3 is "performed" and the "performance" is sent over the net. However, a merely transferred MP3 is sent as a piece of data that is meant for later performance.
Think of it as the difference between sending a VHS recording of a play you produced and transmitting a live show over the airwaves.
Re:Love my iPod - Hate iTunes. (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, you can email iTunes support and request to have all of your bought tracks queued up for you to download again. They usually only will do it once a life time since their officially policy is that you are suppose back up your purchases, but it has saved quite a few people.
I will say again, back up your stuff. It may take a few DVDs at worst.
Re:Love my iPod - Hate iTunes. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Variable Pricing Not the Feature to Have Eviden (Score:3, Informative)
Oh one last thing I forgot to mention above.
-Linux Support!
Yes indeed they released their download manager(which is purely optional but useful) for Windows, Mac AND Linux officially.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Surprise? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Variable Pricing Not the Feature to Have Eviden (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Surprise? (Score:5, Informative)
It seems senseless until you realise that it's back to front in today's common usage. The expression means "they want to eat their cake and still have it afterwards".
Re:Variable Pricing Not the Feature to Have Eviden (Score:1, Informative)
I'm guessing you meant <$1 per track, not >
Re:Love my iPod - Hate iTunes. (Score:2, Informative)
There is something you are not telling us. Or perhaps you made the whole post up?
I was able to get all my tunes off the HD but wasnt able to get them all loaded back onto the iPod from the fresh XP installation on the same LT.
It is just files. Your next iTunes installation would have just picked them up - drm or no drm. And if they're in iTunes, they will be in your iPod once you sync. Perhaps your hard drive rescue didn't go as well as you thought?
as I changed my password from time to time and cant remember which PW I used when I purchased certain tracks.
That is not how it works. It doesn't matter what password you used to buy the tune. You buy them for an iTunes account, and the first time you play them on any computer, iTunes asks for that account's current password. Authorize for one drm:ed song, you authorize for all of them.
You can authorize up to five computers, so even if you needed to reauthorize after reinstalling, that would not have been a problem.
Also, internet lore [google.com] has it that Apple support can disable old, defunct computers and give you back another authorization right - and even let you download stuff you already bought.
So, unless you somehow are confusing Windows Media Player with iTunes - maybe you bought drm:ed music for one and then switched to the other and expecting things to work - it seems your whole post is made up by someone who wants to slam iTunes Music Store but doesnt really know how it works.
Care to clarify?
Re:No rhyme or reason... (Score:2, Informative)
Live sucks. Sorry, had to say it. :)
Re:Who cares? (Score:1, Informative)
Silly Slashdot shills, all this whining and saying "We have Amazon!" and you can't even bother to notice that Amazon and Wal-Mart *also* increased their prices to 1.29 on the same day as Apple:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10214556-27.html