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Price war Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

latimesblogs.latimes.com

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Re: Price war Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

#11

Post by ugh »

apress wrote: post #3
danilocampos wrote: post #2

It's about time. Now let's see the same trend in eBook pricing. Completely inflated for the moment.

Tough for them to do anything about that because of agency pricing imposed by all the major publishers (even Random House recently got on board). Not sure why that's not collusion, but there you go. Separately, with free cloud locker storage and now lower prices, should anyone be buying songs from iTunes anymore?

This only affects all the popular crap and cloud locker storage is not available in Europe.

Re: Price war Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

#12

Post by ugh »

gigawatt wrote: post #6
wccrawford wrote: post #4

Seems to me that iTunes captured the market because of the amazing integration with music devices and not the price point. Until someone beats them at that, I think things will continue as they are. I'm not an Apple fanboy by any means, but nobody else has produced a device that makes it so easy to find, buy, and listen to music on the go. Amazon's Cloud Player is a good start, since it eliminates having to load the…

I buy music almost exclusively through Amazon now solely because of the DRM nonsense iTunes puts on its files. I have several albums that, when I try to play them on my media computer through iTunes home sharing, gives me the "This album is not authorized to play on this computer. Please deactivate one of your authorized computers to add it to this one." Problem is, that 2 of the authorized computers are in the scrap…

The iTunes Music Store hasn't been using DRM for a long time. You can also upgrade your music with DRM to non-DRM. versions but it will cost you money. (This is exactly the reason why I didn't buy any music with DRM. I don't know how you could ever do that.)

Here is how you can deauthorize all computers associated with your iTunes account (the third list of instructions): http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1420

It's a bit hidden but it's easy to do.

Re: Price war Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

#13

Post by scrrr »

wccrawford wrote: post #4

Seems to me that iTunes captured the market because of the amazing integration with music devices and not the price point. Until someone beats them at that, I think things will continue as they are. I'm not an Apple fanboy by any means, but nobody else has produced a device that makes it so easy to find, buy, and listen to music on the go. Amazon's Cloud Player is a good start, since it eliminates having to load the…

What if amazon simply made a good itunes clone with simple export to ipod etc.? Many established businesses can be attacked by offering the same, only better or cheaper. Or isnt it as obvious as i think?

Re: Price war Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

#14

Post by allwein »

gigawatt wrote: post #6
wccrawford wrote: post #4

Seems to me that iTunes captured the market because of the amazing integration with music devices and not the price point. Until someone beats them at that, I think things will continue as they are. I'm not an Apple fanboy by any means, but nobody else has produced a device that makes it so easy to find, buy, and listen to music on the go. Amazon's Cloud Player is a good start, since it eliminates having to load the…

I buy music almost exclusively through Amazon now solely because of the DRM nonsense iTunes puts on its files. I have several albums that, when I try to play them on my media computer through iTunes home sharing, gives me the "This album is not authorized to play on this computer. Please deactivate one of your authorized computers to add it to this one." Problem is, that 2 of the authorized computers are in the scrap…

Apple no longer applies DRM at all in their music store.

It still does in the video store though.

Re: Price war Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

#15

Post by bkudria »

danilocampos wrote: post #5
apress wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tough for them to do anything about that because of agency pricing imposed by all the major publishers (even Random House recently got on board). Not sure why that's not collusion, but there you go. Separately, with free cloud locker storage and now lower prices, should anyone be buying songs from iTunes anymore?

Yeah, let the authors sidestep the publishers as time goes on. They'll incur less overhead (dozens of unnecessary salaries that don't exist), keep more money and sell their product cheaper. The publishers will have to fall into line and sell the product at a price more in line with its value.

The problem is, that is often throwing out the baby with the bathwater: editors. I think self-publishing will only take off after editors begin going freelance.

Re: Price war Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

#16

Post by duskwuff »

gigawatt wrote: post #9
mediamaker wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe "deauthorize all" and re-auth the computers you still use

I'm sure there's a quick fix for the iTunes purchased albums I still have, but the long-term solution is definitely to avoid purchasing from iTunes. For me, at least.

As the iTunes Music Store hasn't used DRM since January 2009, no long-term solution is necessary. Just don't travel back in time and you'll be fine. :)

Re: Price war Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

#18

Post by neuroelectronic »

scrrr wrote: post #13
wccrawford wrote: post #4

Seems to me that iTunes captured the market because of the amazing integration with music devices and not the price point. Until someone beats them at that, I think things will continue as they are. I'm not an Apple fanboy by any means, but nobody else has produced a device that makes it so easy to find, buy, and listen to music on the go. Amazon's Cloud Player is a good start, since it eliminates having to load the…

What if amazon simply made a good itunes clone with simple export to ipod etc.? Many established businesses can be attacked by offering the same, only better or cheaper. Or isnt it as obvious as i think?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

Not exactly an iTunes competetor. Maybe they're purposefully avoiding competeing directly with iTunes by offering a completely different type of expirence.

Re: Price war Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

#19

Post by rubergly »

danilocampos wrote: post #5
apress wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tough for them to do anything about that because of agency pricing imposed by all the major publishers (even Random House recently got on board). Not sure why that's not collusion, but there you go. Separately, with free cloud locker storage and now lower prices, should anyone be buying songs from iTunes anymore?

Yeah, let the authors sidestep the publishers as time goes on. They'll incur less overhead (dozens of unnecessary salaries that don't exist), keep more money and sell their product cheaper. The publishers will have to fall into line and sell the product at a price more in line with its value.

I think you're ignoring the fact that there's much more to publishers than just printing a physical copy of a book and shipping it to shelves. There's marketing, editing, screening, etc. Think what looking for books would be like if there was no quality screening or editing and you had to wade through an online catalog of thousands of books of crap just to have the off chance of happening to see a quality book.

Re: Price war Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

#20

Post by lukifer »

allwein wrote: post #14
gigawatt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy music almost exclusively through Amazon now solely because of the DRM nonsense iTunes puts on its files. I have several albums that, when I try to play them on my media computer through iTunes home sharing, gives me the "This album is not authorized to play on this computer. Please deactivate one of your authorized computers to add it to this one." Problem is, that 2 of the authorized computers are in the scrap…

Apple no longer applies DRM at all in their music store. It still does in the video store though.

I would buy way, WAY more iTunes video if I could re-compress the video to any format I want, and share it with friends. (I realize that the latter is highly undesirable to content holders, but video has always been highly social among my friends, with frequent sharing of DVDs and such.)
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