iTMS: price n restrictions too high!!

[soulseek]

http://www.macdailynews.com/comments.php?id=P2528_0_1_0



for me the most important part is:

a lot of albums now exceed the store's customary $9.99 price, and a few even exceed their cost as CDs in a store.

and my question is: HOW GREEDY can record labels become ???
their sales have been decreasing continuously.
and with iTunes being a good opportunity to increase them, they just get more greedy. with the iTunes music store they basically have no cost of material production, so all of the money is profit.

and they want higher prices than 10 dollars an album ???

i would rather pay 20 dollars, and get A CD , and at really good quality, than pay 14 dollars for an album on iTMS !!!

[Giaguara]

The real article that was clipped onis in http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Apr17.html - and that has some interesting examples [like some specific cds that cost less in Bestbuy etc than in iTMS]. Interesting article [the washington post, not the cut version].

Bandwidth is not free. iTMS uses a lot of bandwidth. So all money iTMS gets is not profit - bandwidth, technical development such as software, of course the record label deals and costs for getting more of them to try iTMS, and artists fees ...

But you are right - the electronic version should not be more pricy than the version with the CD and a nice case.

[mindbend]

ITMS has never been about providing the lowest price. It's about convenience. Many of us, and in the future, virtually all of us, will choose to download music over any other option simply for the convenience. In several more years when all the old music has been archived digitally and all current/future music is as well, you can start saying goodbye to record stores. Mark my words, it will happen. Sure, there will be some holdouts, just like the vinyl holdouts ("I prefer the smooth analog sound and the big pictures on the jacket"), just like today's version ("I need the full 16 bit, 44.1 and the CD inserts"). Whatever. Those days are numbered.

I will gladly pay the same price as a CD for a download version if it's easy to get (ITMS) and sounds pretty much as good (in the future it will sound every single bit as good as a CD, so that argument won't hold up much longer). Clearly, a buttload (what, half a billion downloads?) of other people agree with me.

Cost of manufacturing is irrelevant. The price is whatever the market will bear. If it costs them one cent to make a CD and we, the public, will fork over $15-$20, end of story. I find all the pricing abslutely fair and reasonable.

[Randman]

I don't have any problems with the restrictions. I can still play my music where I want, when I want and how I want.
It could be a little cheaper (the tax thing bites, $.99 should be $.99, not $1.12), but as stated above, I love the convenience. Most CDs that I bought, I would just rip 'em to my iPod anyway, so saving me that extra time and energy seems to be a push, imho.
That, and it is fun just to wade through and browse at my convenience.

[soulseek]

giaguara, the operating price is paid by apple not by the record labels. what apple gives to them for the songs is essentually pure profit !!!

[monktus]

Cd pricing isn't as clear cut as many people think, especially if you're not American. Remember that in the UK (even considering sales tax), CDs cost way way more than in the US. You guys have it good, very good. And while it annoys me that the retail cost is so high here (and to an extent in the US), there are things you have to consider. For example, take CD singles. Record companies don't make that much money off them because of the costs of distribution. A CD might well only cost a few cents to manufacture but then there are the costs of getting that CD to the store. This is proportionally much more than for an album. I won't argue that labels have been ripping off artists for years and continue to do so (e.g. "packaging" costs, giving less royalties on CDs than tapes etc.) but the reality is somewhere in between "the labels are ripping me off!" and "cds are really expensive to produce!". For example, A+R, marketing and publicity. Any band or artist that's had a successful album will have had a lot of money spent on them by the label, from the cost of recording the record to advertising its release. The major labels need to wake up to digital distribution and change the way they do business but, while it would be nice to have a socialist musical utopia, money needs to be made. This goes for both the majors who spend muchos dollars on publicising the new Britney album to my friend who put his savings into advertising for his indie label. If you read Slashdot at all, think of Free Software/Free Beer argument. </rant>