iTunes glitch that pointed out a nasty switch
Or, "The Curse of the Partial Album".
I went to buy some music today that I'd been accumulating in my shopping cart over the past week or so.
I couldn't buy anything. I kept getting this error:
I clicked the "Refresh" button to get out of this dialog, looked over what was in my cart, and everything seemed okay. I wasn't too put off by this error, because I had done my shopping from two different computers, with iTunes left running on one while shopping from another computer. I had all the reason in the world to think that this was simply a technical glitch, perhaps complicated by having a couple of pending free diet Pepsi songs in the mix.
To make a long story somewhat shorter, I tried all sorts of things: quitting, restarting, signing out and back in, adding a song and deleting another... nothing worked. So I wrote to iTMS support to ask them to help out.
I decided to screen-capture my shopping cart, just in case Apple's support people had to delete my cart to fix the problem. Then I noticed something strange.
The Blue Man Group album "The Complex" was showing as $0.00. I was sure that the album wasn't really for free. I remember it being $9.99. I'd like to check the price to make sure my memory is correct, but, as it turns out, I can't check that price any more.
At first I thought, "Maybe iTMS tried to cash in the whole album as one free song, and then glitched on that error." So I decided I'd try deleting the album and adding it again -- and that's when I realized what got screwed up, and that I had been (mildly, admittedly) screwed myself.
I couldn't re-add the album as an album, because that option had been taken away. Between the time I'd first put "The Complex" into my cart, and when I went to buy it, Apple had pulled the rug out from under my shopping cart by removing the option to buy this album as an album. Not only that, but what had been a complete album for $9.99 was now a partial album that would cost $11.88 (and eleven extra clicks) to buy, with two songs missing.
So not only did Apple (probably forced into it by a record label or some disagreeable artists and their lawyers) change this album for the worse, they did so in a way that their software handled in a very confusing way. It was not at all immediately clear that I was dead in the water until I deleted on particular no-longer-available choice.
I still bought the remainder of the music I first set out to buy, but I absolutely wasn't even going to consider re-adding the Blue Man Group album a song at a time to get less music for more money. Definitely a time to wait until I'm out shopping and buy the CD instead.
The missing songs, by the way:
3. Sing Along - featuring Dave Matthews
8. White Rabbit - featuring Esthero
What's ironic is that the iTMS description of "The Complex" still talks about Dave Matthews as a guest artist, and about the "crowd-pleasing version of Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit'".
There needs to be a footnote now that says "All available on CD -- but not here."
I went to buy some music today that I'd been accumulating in my shopping cart over the past week or so.
I couldn't buy anything. I kept getting this error:
Quote:
Your shopping cart's contents have changed.
Either the prices of some items have changed, or items have been
added or removed from another computer. Please review your
shopping cart and click Buy Now.
Your shopping cart's contents have changed.
Either the prices of some items have changed, or items have been
added or removed from another computer. Please review your
shopping cart and click Buy Now.
I clicked the "Refresh" button to get out of this dialog, looked over what was in my cart, and everything seemed okay. I wasn't too put off by this error, because I had done my shopping from two different computers, with iTunes left running on one while shopping from another computer. I had all the reason in the world to think that this was simply a technical glitch, perhaps complicated by having a couple of pending free diet Pepsi songs in the mix.
To make a long story somewhat shorter, I tried all sorts of things: quitting, restarting, signing out and back in, adding a song and deleting another... nothing worked. So I wrote to iTMS support to ask them to help out.
I decided to screen-capture my shopping cart, just in case Apple's support people had to delete my cart to fix the problem. Then I noticed something strange.
The Blue Man Group album "The Complex" was showing as $0.00. I was sure that the album wasn't really for free. I remember it being $9.99. I'd like to check the price to make sure my memory is correct, but, as it turns out, I can't check that price any more.
At first I thought, "Maybe iTMS tried to cash in the whole album as one free song, and then glitched on that error." So I decided I'd try deleting the album and adding it again -- and that's when I realized what got screwed up, and that I had been (mildly, admittedly) screwed myself.
I couldn't re-add the album as an album, because that option had been taken away. Between the time I'd first put "The Complex" into my cart, and when I went to buy it, Apple had pulled the rug out from under my shopping cart by removing the option to buy this album as an album. Not only that, but what had been a complete album for $9.99 was now a partial album that would cost $11.88 (and eleven extra clicks) to buy, with two songs missing.
So not only did Apple (probably forced into it by a record label or some disagreeable artists and their lawyers) change this album for the worse, they did so in a way that their software handled in a very confusing way. It was not at all immediately clear that I was dead in the water until I deleted on particular no-longer-available choice.
I still bought the remainder of the music I first set out to buy, but I absolutely wasn't even going to consider re-adding the Blue Man Group album a song at a time to get less music for more money. Definitely a time to wait until I'm out shopping and buy the CD instead.
The missing songs, by the way:
3. Sing Along - featuring Dave Matthews
8. White Rabbit - featuring Esthero
What's ironic is that the iTMS description of "The Complex" still talks about Dave Matthews as a guest artist, and about the "crowd-pleasing version of Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit'".
There needs to be a footnote now that says "All available on CD -- but not here."
Comments
I hate partial albums on iTunes. It's even worse when they change under you. I hope this stuff is just growing pains.
It seems that Apple and/or the music companies are hammering out a pricing policy that is more consistent towards super-long tracks and hammering out licensing issues, however, I've yet to see it work where shorter tracks (less than a minute) are either available at a discount or included with other tracks for free, etc. The funny thing is, and I'm sure this is fairly deliberate, that new album pricing is higher than older albums, where in brick and mortar sales, new music is discounted at first, the price rise and if it's pressed for so many years or doesn't sell in the first place, goes in the Super Saver bins for a deep discount again. The iTMS so far is showing that new popular stuff is almost if not at regular CD prices, no discounts or such.
I don't mind fair variation in pricing so long as it goes both ways.