Price hike hits Apple's iTunes Store

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 202
    Let's all drive down the sales of the $1.29 tracks. Please obtain these tracks from your favorite P2P and put a hurt on these Labels. It won't hurt Apple, their money comes from ipod sales. If we all boycott, it may change. Is that the hot word - ChANgE
  • Reply 42 of 202
    halvrihalvri Posts: 146member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GTL215 View Post


    Cancellation fees exist to protect carriers against losses, since they subsidize the purchase of the phone. If you don't want a contract, then pay full price for the phone.



    I'm fully aware of their purpose. My point was that, as a carrier, if you are unable to perform your advertised service, you should not have the ability to charge me a cancellation fee amounting to six months of service to cover your already exceptionally high margin service.



    And believe me, I would gladly pay full price for a phone and get better service options, but the non-contract options ultimately cost even more from almost all of he biggest carriers.
  • Reply 43 of 202
    I along with millions of others use iTunes, cos it's quick, convenient reasonably priced and you feel that artists and producers should be paid for their work.



    But a blatant attempt by labels to grab 30% more money is just going to result in a backlash and an increase piracy. Labels need to get in to their thick heads is that a sale made on iTunes doesn't cost them that much and it's a sale which they wouldn't have ever made otherwise.
  • Reply 44 of 202
    halvrihalvri Posts: 146member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GMHut View Post


    For all intents and purposes, CDs are loss-less. I know, I know, some audiophiles will claim they can hear EVERYTHING on the original recording. In reality, the human ear won't perceive the amount of data "lost" due to digitalization. Most (if any) won't hear the difference between 256 and anything above. Anyone who thinks they can is either the first human/canine hybrid or has delusions of grandeur.



    They come from a loss-less sample and that's it. Compressing the file for CDs inherently causes loss. It does the same thing even at higher bitrates. Stop trying to justify your error and just move on. Physical media is dead one way or another so this entire argument is ultimately irrelevant.
  • Reply 45 of 202
    dreyfus2dreyfus2 Posts: 1,072member
    Hm, a bit too much negativity here... Most titles are still exactly the same 99 Cents they were going for yesterday (and most of the 1.29 titles are in the charts, you can hear and record them on the radio at least ten times daily). And Amazon could not beat the iTS while being cheaper since it is around. The download market is growing (in some countries at rapid pace) and there is room for several providers. Apple is still offering far more titles than Amazon, a far better buying experience, good customer service and several extras. It is not doomsday just yet...



    The more interesting question will be, if Apple is really getting worse conditions than e.g. Amazon. If this is the case, this could become a legal issue in quite some places.
  • Reply 46 of 202
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GMHut View Post


    For all intents and purposes, CDs are loss-less.



    I think it isn't on two levels. First, there is no lossy or lossless codec involved so the designation doesn't fit. Second, the audio was pulled from a better copy so there is loss involved to putting to a CD. SACD is evident of the limitations of typical CD audio.



    I know I basically contradicted myself between the two posting but it depends on the PoV you start with, hence the inclusion of both.
  • Reply 47 of 202
    virgil-tb2virgil-tb2 Posts: 1,416member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gabriel_bl View Post


    ... Now when I hear some song and I like it, from the same CD I usually buy 2-3 songs that could end up to be nearly 4$. I will question my decision and think if it is not better to buy a whole CD somewhere for 9$ and I will wait and look for a deal. ...



    This is a good point.



    Most of the people I know that still buy CDs buy them second hand as the cost of new ones is still pretty outrageous. That means the average CD is 10 bucks or less in the eye of the consumer.



    Even a couple of $1.29 tracks on an album will take the price over that, making it not worth your while to buy digitally.
  • Reply 48 of 202
    I have no problem spending $10 for a CD. I do have a problem with spending $18, which is what the brick-and-mortar stores charged around here.
  • Reply 49 of 202
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Stashman View Post


    I along with millions of others use iTunes, cos it's quick, convenient reasonably priced and you feel that artists and producers should be paid for their work.



    iTunes Music Store took off many years ago at 99¢ and they only had 128kbps. Now that internet music sales are more common and all tracks are DRM-free and 256kbps I don't think most people will worry about the variable pricing for new and popular tracks.



    Personally, I only bought my first iTunes music track a couple months ago, though I have been buying and renting videos for a long time. It was the inclusion of iTunes music sales through the iPhone while on the carrier's network that made me want to do it. That extra convenience was the key for me. I think I've heard a song, found out the name with Shazam, and purchased on my iPhone a dozen times or more at this point. I hope Apple is paying Shazam for their assistance.
  • Reply 50 of 202
    mac31mac31 Posts: 44member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Truntru View Post


    Why don't more people use the zune pass? For $15/month (up to 3 zunes and 3 computers) you can download as much temporary music as you would like, and also keep in your collection forever 10 songs. You can't find a better deal anywhere.



    Because $15 for 10 songs in the end is stupid. I'd rather pay $10 for 10 songs. And the Zune = gag.



    Regardless, this isn't "Apple's fault" when the record labels are enforcing the change. Jobs didn't want it to be this way.
  • Reply 51 of 202
    mj webmj web Posts: 918member
    Amazon's $1.99 daily specials (like Motown Number 1's) sell for $8-$10 on iTunes. I could never figure out for the life of me why anyone would purchase low bit rate DRM protected music for such an exorbitant price on iTune's.



    Now Apple's miscalculation is Amazon's gain!
  • Reply 52 of 202
    jazzgurujazzguru Posts: 6,435member
    Don't get mad at Apple. Get mad at those using P2P/Torrents to obtain music illegally. They're the reason prices are going up.
  • Reply 53 of 202
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MJ Web View Post


    Now Apple's miscalculation is Amazon's gain!



    I'm not sure what part of that is Apple's miscalculation. Apple has been trying to go DRM-free and offer lower prices long before the Amazon Music Store arrived. The music cartel are the ones pulling the strings at Amazon trying to get Apple loss its stronghold, but it didn't work. In fact, since DRM-free MP3s work perfectly well on iPods I am sure that it has done nothing but strengthen Apple's cash cow even further. I don't think Apple cares if it loses a small percentage of it's iTunes Store cosnumer-base to Amazon if it means they sell more HW. I think it's more likely that the 256kbps, DRM-free MP3 files probably did more to loosen more CD buyers to the conveneicnce of online music sales, but they had to try as it was their only play left before giving Apple the unprotected audio files that they had been asking for.
  • Reply 54 of 202
    gmhutgmhut Posts: 242member
    I'm one of those that downloads music for convenience. I switched to amazon when they started downloads as much for the higher bitrate as DRM. When Apple went to DRM and 256 or VB (I think ACC is superior to MP3) I jumped on it and started upgrading my non-plus songs as soon as each became available. I was willing to buy them again for .30 cents on the dollar, but I won't pay a dollar or more per song, to buy the same song again. Aside from higher quality, DRM allows me to stream to my PS3.



    I probably have way more new music than I would have if it weren't for iTunes. However, with the price increase and not being to upgrade all the music I bought from Apple to 256 DRM for a reasonable price, I will once again become a more patient music buyer and forego the convenience of instant gratification.



    As an old fart, I tend to be album oriented. I generally only buy singles that are older and and have nostalgic value for me, or are classics in the, "part of music history pantheon, must have" category. I pretty much have the latter satisfied. I will probably use iTunes to preview music and read reviews, make a list or mental note of albums I want, the next time I'm in the mall or near a borders or barne's and noble, I'll pop in, buy the CD, rip it, toss the case and put the disk in a CD book, and hope record labels will be less greedy. Or better yet, I hope more and more artists will discover ways to release independently so that they (and song writers) can get the money they deserve for their art and cut out the labels who have been gouging them for years and doing little to earn the lions share of the profits they keep.
  • Reply 55 of 202
    kolchakkolchak Posts: 1,398member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Many songs will remain priced at 99 cents while some older and less popular tracks are expected to fall to 69 cents. But as of Tuesday morning, those cheaper songs were few and far between.



    That's an understatement. I've checked about 50 artists in my music library, ranging from the 1930s to the 1990s. In the thousand-plus results from those searches, I haven't found anything under 99 cents.
  • Reply 56 of 202
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by striker_kk View Post


    Apple is going to lose business in this segment.

    Certainly Apple must have figured out this already!!

    Still they did hike the price..



    Gotta love ignorance.



    Apple doesn't care about content as long as their customers have access to it. This was why they created the iTunes store in the first place. It wasn't to take over the music industry. At the time there weren't any legal places to buy popular digital music for Macs. Everything was Windows only. Because no one else was willing to make anything compatible with Macs, Apple stepped in, as they usually do, and created something their customers could use. And remember this was very limited at first, which is why Steve Jobs was able to get them to all agree to their a la cart model; something that no one else had been able to do before.



    No one knew what kind of monster this was going to grow into. After it was too late, the record companies realized that iTunes had grown up and become the 700 pound gorilla they are today. So, fearing of losing complete control yet again (as they did with MTV in the 80's), they decided to let others offer something extra and prevent Apple from being able to match it. The Amazon store was created with DRM-free tracks. The intention of this was not to make music buying consumers happy (a side affect), but rather to provide leverage over negotiations with Apple.



    To the average ignorant consumer, this made Amazon look like the good guy and Apple appear evil, when in fact, the record companies were holding all the strings and playing them against each other. This of course created a media backlash against Apple and an obviously false perception of consumer demand; Amazon gained market share, but at the cost of Plays For Sure and Zune, while iTunes continued to maintain its market share. It got so bad that Steve Jobs had to come out publicly (once again*) against DRM and let all the whiners know that if they had the choice they would remove DRM from iTunes music... and a few months later they demonstrated that by announcing EMI's entire catalog in the iTunes Plus format. (Yes it cost 30 cents more at the time, but the proof was in the fact that Apple was accused of wanting to lock people into the iTunes+iPod ecosystem, which they clearly were not. They have always wanted a seamless experience for their customers. Perhaps if Microsoft weren't so damned greedy by locking Plays For Sure content to Windows, then there wouldn't have been a need for iTunes at all?)



    *Steve Jobs once said in a Rolling Stone interview, that DRM would never really work. Someone would always find a way around it.



    Well eventually Apple had to cave, because passive ignorant people aren't willing to boycott the record industry, for some reason they just have to have their music at any cost. I assume by looking at the top ten lists, most of these people are teens and don't care about politics at that age, so none of this is worth their time. (They'll pay later for it, as we are now.)



    Anyway, here we are again... Amazon once again has another unequal advantage and of course it is all Apple's fault. So go ahead and run to Amazon, I don't blame you, but just remember you're proving the record industry to be correct in their assumption that consumers are like cattle and can easily be corralled and led tot he slaughter house. Personally, except a few older albums here and there, I've stopped buying music altogether. F#$K the record industry! Thank god some bands have the moxie to stand up to the industry and are starting to distribute, sell and give away their own music.



    Hopefully that will be the next distribution model... "Artist Direct" where artists can submit their own content to iTunes and have Apple take a share as they do with the iPhone App Store.
  • Reply 57 of 202
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jenkman91 View Post


    Limewire is good too if you want to be caught by the FBI who will then seize all of your computers slap you with a huge fine, and then throw your ass in federal prison. it does not matter how many firewalls you have. The government can always fine you. trust me... I have learned the hard way.



    Copyright is a civil, not criminal matter, which is why it's RIAA against person x, not State of Minnesota/Feds against person x and also why no one goes to jail.
  • Reply 58 of 202
    Have you seen the track prices on U2's No Line On The Horizon album? That's just disgusting.
  • Reply 59 of 202
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Apple specifically said there's be "more" songs at .69 than 1.29.



    I'm hoping that they live up to this statement. I'm a bit upset that there are few

    .69 songs. I want to "crate dig" for some golden oldies and $.69 a track suits me well.
  • Reply 60 of 202
    Wow and I was thinking of starting to legally buy more music from iTunes, not anymore. I will buy from Amazon or another vendor where its still .99 a track or less. Nice job Apple and record execs, drive more piracy! You just don't get it still, how long will it take. I like to download albums from torrents to see if I like any of the songs, then if I really like them I will buy the song, album or the CD, so torrents drive sales not take away all together. This model just drives more piracy not makes more sales or in your case drives sales to other music sites like Amazon where its still .99 or less.
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