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October 25, 2005
Australia gets its iTunes Music Store
You might like to check out the local iTunes Music Store. The official announcement won't come until 9am, but we've been doing a bit of business there since we checked it out just before 8am.
Tracks are $1.69, which is pretty steep, but that's what we've come to expect from the local music industry, whose mantra, of course is "Rip off the consumer at every opportunity".
Now what we have to do is check out whether, as usual, they're holding back on the latest hits.
Update: As we've posted over at Razor, Sony BMG have held back all their albums, which means that a huge number of the chart hits aren't available. One of our Razor commenters, Shannon, suggests that when you calculate the exchange rate and GST, we're paying 20c per track premium for the privilege of having our own iTMS store. You can imagine how much the record companies are going to be making out of that! And, as we all know, this music should be CHEAPER than CD prices, not more expensive.
Update 2: Coles Myer has just sent us a press release announcing that until February 28 next year, they'll be the exclusive source of pre-paid iTunes Music Cards [$20, $50, $100] available from Myer, Coles Supermarkets, Coles Express, Target, KMart, BiLo, Megamart, OfficeWorks and Harris Technology. They expect to sell a lot of them as Christmas stocking stuffers.
Posted by cw at October 25, 2005 08:13 AM
Comments
More importantly, can I now list my podcasts with them!
Molly
Http://mollyzine.libsyn.com
Posted by: Phillip Molly Malone at October 25, 2005 09:16 AM
Whoopey! But you are right they are holding out on plenty of the latest. Franz Ferdinand, for instance.
Posted by: Ed Charles at October 25, 2005 09:31 AM
the razor link doesnt work., remove the www and it does :)
Posted by: stanna at October 25, 2005 09:57 AM
Thanks Stanna. Fixed!
Posted by: cw at October 25, 2005 10:04 AM
So how do you get around the credit card location restriction, and buy on the US store? Or is that something we can't mention here?
Posted by: Donal at October 25, 2005 11:59 AM
Tell me again why I would use iTMS, when AllOfMP3 is around 10x cheaper?...
Posted by: Jeremy Howard at October 25, 2005 01:49 PM
As expected it's just a big rip off. $16.99 for a classical album at a quality less than a CD is a joke. Roll on BitTorrent and the rest. I've moved from just contempt for the entertainment companies to something more hostile as I watch them using their clout to grab corporate welfare from conservative governments. And that's all these "gain legal protection for our profits" scams called copyright laws are, corporate welfare. And no amount of enthralled Mac publicists masquerading as reporters hyping iTunes is going to change my mind. Sensible consumers should not pay for downloads at this price. Roll on a barter economy where we share our tracks.
And, by the way, some sort of organised and open barter economy of sharing is probably the best route to finding a way to pay musicians fairly as well. Because that certainly isn't what happens when 90% of pop musicians sign up to serfdom with recording companies. The power of the industry lies in its power over distribution and that's what has to be defeated, and would be if the market was allowed to hold sway and use the technology.
Posted by: tflip at October 26, 2005 12:34 PM
iTunes prepaid cards are also available at Shell petrol stations. Very suprised to see them there, after the Store had only opened the day before.
Posted by: Ben Engel at October 30, 2005 04:04 PM
Yeah, the iTunes stuff was sent to the stores, but was embargoed until 10.30 am on the release day so I knew what it was but couldn't use it. Most annoying. I approch it from this angle: yes, $1.69 is expensive. But, to copy it from somewhere without the authority of the copyright holder is, last I checked, still illegal.
No, I don't work for iTunes I work in one of those Coles Express/Shell servos. I, for one, would much prefer to do the right thing. I figure if there is enough demand, the price will come down as it becomes cheaper to supply. IMHO.
Posted by: Newman at October 31, 2005 06:21 PM