Slashdot Mirror
iTunes Europe Goes Live
Spad writes "The Register is reporting the launch of iTunes in the UK, France and Germany. "iTunes will carry 700,000 songs from the five major record labels and independents, and prices for the download service start at 79 pence or 99 euro cents per song." It's not ideal (99c is about 55p) but it's better pricing than expected. I for one will be signing up to use it."
I know there is a Windows client for I-Tunes, but this article made me wonder.
How many Apple users are there in Europe anyway?
(Not trying to belittle them in any way, I'm just curious)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
What? Only UK, France and Germany?
Why not the whole of Europe? Did Apple also excluded one or more of the States of America?
Grmbl...
Well, kudos to them for not making us Britains pay 99p a track, like I'm sure some other companies would.
We still pay the highest price, but I'm getting used to being shafted out of every penny I own here anyway.
120 characters should be enough for anybody
Well it's launched but there's not much on there at the moment and there's an awful lot of "Partial albums" consiting of just one song. Hopefully they'll be adding more tracks over the coming weeks....
Well i think we're getting a shitty deal in the UK when 0.99 euro converts to 65p and UK users have to pay 79p a track!
...still not available for the 53rd state: Canada.
You do understand that the difference between XP/2K and 98 is pretty huge when it comes to underlying technology, right? Of course you don't, otherwise you wouldn't make a comment like that. Apple would much rather focus on making it work well on the platforms that people use now, vs. grandfathering in a 6 year old OS.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
And it is as legal as the black market. Just what I want. I like getting visits from men in dark suits after downloading 100 songs from Russia that are 100% legal. Sign me up!
iTunes Europe might not be as successful as in the US since not all people listen to music in English. Until iTunes finds a way to customize the selection based on geography, I for one would not be willing to navigate through the site searching for my music.
Also, many artists have their recordings in multiple languages (like Eros/Laura in italian/spanish/portugese etc). Would be interesting to see how they unify or resolve the cultural differences
If any of you follow financial news, companies are reporting additional gains from exchange rates, and some years report losses...
Prices are set in local markets based upon localized demand and competition (limited monopoly pricing power from brand, even in a relatively competitive market), etc.
Right now, it is cheaper for Germans to buy German cars sold in America and reimport them, because even with the cost of shipping the car from the states, the Euro is so strong on the dollar that it results in the importing the American made German car is cheaper.
Companies set prices (usually with local subsidiaries because of assinine international tax laws) in each country. Many companies will engage in "hedging" with the currency derivative market, because they aren't in the business of currency speculation (although if it should work out in the long run, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, then paying the commissions on those trades isn't economically intelligent, but it's important for hitting quarterly/annual numbers, joys of public accounting).
However, the price will be set in the European market based upon the prevailing price there. However, that is in part because of Apple's limited "monopoly" pricing power (note, this is NOT monopoly a la anti-trust, it's in a competitive market with highly similiar substitute goods, like CDs, pirated music, etc.), but only Apple sets the price for iTMS downloads.
One of the things that the Internet and digital transfers has the potential to do is destroy regionalized pricing, at least within the English (and then Spanish, etc.) speaking world. In that scenario, Apple could set prices in each store based upon local trends, but consumers could buy from whichever store TODAY's currency price makes most beneficial. That is great for consumers, but lousy for corporate profits (then they ALWAYS lose on the currency fluctuation, because the business goes to whatever is cheapest that day).
However, a Euro price that isn't identical to US pricing with TODAY'S rate of exchange makes sense. The Euro is up something like 30% on the Dollar in the past 12 months. If that trend reverses, and 1 $ = 1 E again, then a Euro price of 55 cents would devastate Apple. The Euro was established at a price level to make the nominal exchange of Euros to Dollars approx. 1:1, which would obviously fluctuate.
Consumers in general are more interested in pricing in their local currency then international pricing. Although the Internet has changed things SLIGHTLY, in general, most consumers don't engage in International trade, but rather buy from an organization that has imported the products for them. Hence Amazon has localized businesses, Apple set up local Apple AND now iTMS to price in the local currency. Cars are priced in each local market.
However, the free flow of information will reduce that ability over time, which is a good thing, but you shouldn't be shocked that it isn't instant.
Alex
I thought that the EU was dead against people being able to price people differently based on country. In other words, if you go to a site, that site can't give you a different price based on your country of origin. But, that having a UK site and a French site with different prices is OK.
Check out Magnatune.com - no DRM, just music and 50% goes to the musicians.
amazon can sell music cd's across europe, why can't apple sell music files across europe?
I suspect the difference is that Amazon.com just ships around pre-made physical goods, whereas iTunes Music Store offers digital downloading. It's essentially a completely new form of commerce.
Apple needs to convince the labels that they want to offer their product through iTMS, hence the need to negotiate deals. Apple has also said the labels make the actual music files, not Apple. So again, Apple has to convince the labels to put effort into encoding their products for iTMS.
Oh, the same tired tale. You know, if you want to get the record companies to stop promoting shitty bands, maybe you should first get people to stop buying shitty albums. It is a tragedy that Britney Spears has sold ten times as many records as Tom Waits with a quarter of the talent...but them's the breaks.
I mean, it's not like independent labels don't exist, don't sign bands and don't release albums to the mass market INCLUDING over iTunes. In fact, iTunes has more independent labels than any other online music store. You don't think SONY Connect is gonna court Asian Man Records, do you?
I've actually been quite surprised by the number of GOOD artists who get above-the-fold promotion on iTunes. Even the ones who don't are displayed RIGHT NEXT to their corporate shilling brethern. And the selection beats the crap out of the most ecclectic brick & mortars I've seen. I mean, iTunes has the friggin' Kind Geedorah record. I had to literally threaten violence at my local Newbury Comics to get them to even ORDER that shit, and even then it cost me $20.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I don't think most of the iTMS customers are being driven to the store by the RIAA's lawsuits. All along, there have been lots of people saying that they downloaded music from P2P because it was convenient, and they only did it illegally because there was no decent legal alternative.
Apple's business model is to make things even more convenient, allow people to be honest, and offer it at a price that's not much worse than free.
Sure, there are still plenty of people out there just downloading whatever they can find for nothing, just as there are people who shoplift in brick and mortar stores. But that doesn't mean there's no money to be made in selling stuff.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Personally, I agree that it's not a good deal for purchasing an entire album, for the reasons you listed. Where it is a really good deal, is purchasing individual tracks. For example, there are all sorts of tracks by my favorite artists available only on compilation albums. I don't want any of the other tracks on the compilation album, just the one. So it's great that I can pay 99 cents and get the song I want, rather than $18.99 in a store for the entire album, which I wouldn't listen to. The same goes for many reissued albums--Sonic Youth have put out a "deluxe" version of "Dirty". I already own the cd, but would like to have some of the new extra tracks without repurchasing the whole thing.
Typically, a "media" company owns its own content. Apple owns no real content (either than its ads), nor is it making a play (yet) for a content company (or vice-versa, e.g. Sony buying Apple); so it doesn't appear that Apple is moving towards becoming a media company.
However, as you noted, Apple is certainly branching into consumer electronics, so it's more likley that they will continue to be a hardware company, but just one not completely focused on the computer market only. Given Apple's numerous awards for industrial design and cachet as being "sexy" and "upscale", it's probably a smart move (as the success of the iPod has proven).
Hardware was, is and probably will remain to be what Apple's all about.