iTunes Overpriced?

[andygrif]

According to the Consumers' Association, the iTunes Music Store is 'overcharging' customers, and has asked the OFT to investigate.

Full story here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3658200.stm

Personally I haven't used the service, but I don't think it is too much - in fact it's cheaper than most other UK download sites and it's certainly cheaper than buying a CD single. What do you think?

[Lew]

Compared to the French and German iTunes stores it is more expensive, but even at 79p/£7.99 I don't think it's that expensive.

[MadGamer]

Originally Posted by Mimizuku no Lew

Compared to the French and German iTunes stores it is more expensive, but even at 79p/£7.99 I don't think it's that expensive.

I agree. If you look at Napstar their songs cost 99p for a single track and somewhere in the region of £9.99 for an Album. Now Itunes are far cheaper.

[scrotnig]

It's a private enterprise, they can charge as they please, whether it is overpriced depends entirely on whether the public will pay the prices.

The aim of business, whether we like it or not, is to charge the highest price that can be got away with in the market. Many people like to think that the aim of business is to provide the cheapest products to the public, this is a myth.

[jtwn]

I would never pay for mp3s full stop.

I definately would use these services if you could download cd spec wavs.

[neel2k]

Originally Posted by Mark B

It's a private enterprise, they can charge as they please, whether it is overpriced depends entirely on whether the public will pay the prices.

True, but what they cannot do is stop people from the UK buying from the French and German ITunes which is what they are doing.

[macuser_e7]

I'm sure, given the choice, Apple would run a single store for Europe - it would be much less hassle and much less expensive.

But sadly the music industry isn't set up that way. Bands are signed to different labels in different countries and have different publishers, so it's impossible to have a single consistent catalogue for the whole continent.

The Consumers' Association is looking in the wrong place if it wants to try and enforce a single european market for online music: it needs to get the reocrd companies to sort out their act first before going after Apple.

[Steve H]

Originally Posted by jtwn

I would never pay for mp3s full stop.

I definately would use these services if you could download cd spec wavs.

Interesting...

Maybe they'll consider this at some point.

[ntl customer]

Originally Posted by jtwn

I would never pay for mp3s full stop.

I definately would use these services if you could download cd spec wavs.

Neither would I.

I refuse to pay or use any services for legal music downloads if they're DRM protected or compressed in any way (regardless of whatever codec or system they use).

If I pay for it, then I should be free to do what I want with it (within reason) - whether it be convert it into another format, burning it to CD or sticking it in a portable music device, without loss of sound quality.

In fact, I voiced my opinion on Newsbeat's "What Do You Think" section when I heard the news about it ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/news/wha...download.shtml

Originally Posted by I

Official downloads are a rip-off. Too expensive for what you get - a low bitrate, compressed, DRM protected file. Ugh! I think the record industry should be lowering the prices of CD singles rather than trying to rip us off with official downloads. If they think downloading is "the way forward", then at least they could offer it to us in an uncompressed DRM-free CD quality format rather than this rubbish.

Why should I waste my money and time downloading and burning to CD an inferior quality file?

And why should I have to waste my time downloading clunky software which when installed and running consumes quite a bit of memory and disk space?

Unfortunately like most things, they seem to be getting away with the lowest common denominator, rather than a quality uncompressed file. Much like DAB where the sound quality IMO is rubbish on anything other than a kitchen portable (Evoke 1 anybody?) with a weedy mono speaker and Telewest digital TV where everything is overcomprssed - apparently pixellation can be frequently seen. They seem to think we all have cloth ears and crappy vision.

I agree. I would never buy an MP3 off the internet. I prefer having very high-quality CD-Audio which doesn't use compression, and doesn't have as much hassle to burn to a CD.