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Canadian iTunes Music Store Opens
Trillan writes "After appearing on December 1st, iTunes music store Canada is now officially open. Price is only $0.99 CDN (about $0.83 US) per song, so it's less expensive than the US store. This is probably fair since our CDs are usually cheaper here, too, at least on the west coast."
No, you have to have a canadian credit card.
No. The lawyers for record companies won't allow it; music sales are balkanized into seperate markets by country.
This is why it takes Apple so long to roll out in each country -- they must negotiate rights for each market, one by one.
To purchase from the Canadian iTMS, you must have a credit card with a Canadian address.
It has to do with the licensing agreements carried out with the Canadian divisions of record labels vs the US divisions. Plus, us Canadians were unable to purchase music from the US store, as you needed a credit card with a US address.
From TFA:
"The iTunes Music Store in Canada works with the Canadian dollar, and purchase and download of songs requires a valid credit card with a billing address in Canada."
Which is fine for me, but not for Americans..
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
We get a deal on the 99c 'tunes. You, however, get a much better deal on hardware that costs thousands of dollars. Webstores have not kept up with the recent change in exchange rates.
There are also different levies, taxes, and other costs that differ from country to country. Get over it. For once we _DIDN'T_ get screwed. Kind of nice.
Keep in mind that the taxes in Canada are higher on average. In Ontario, we pay a total of 15% tax.
Also, keep in mind, if a can of coke goes for $1 US, the same can will sell in Canada for $1 CAD.
No. Probably because people in Canada are legally allowed to download music. =)
Jason Lotito
The performance of the store doesn't seem terribly awe inspiring right now. Knowing that Apple don't tend to launch small, I can only presume that this means lots of happy Canadians browsing and buying.
-psy
Albums are mostly $9.99 Canadian dollars = about $8.50 American :D
Yes, we use BitTorrent up here. Nice, full albums, and many of which have good info tags, and high quality (many I find around 200-250 kbps).
Now rarely are the album arts embedded within, but personally I find that a waste. It is a waste of space in my mind (embedded in every track of every song you own? Overkill.). But many albums do include JPGs of the album covers.
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."
as an indie musician with stuff on iTunes, they don't have it together internally. I've had sales from 6 months ago that I haven't been paid for yet.
it's great that they're opening these new outlets and all but they're lacking in some basics.
I'm a Canadian, and up untill today I have been buying songs from iTunes USA with my US credit card, so I can only assume that the reverse is also possible. Should the slide of the US greenback continue (the canadian dollar is already at a 10+ year high against the USD) and CDN$ > USD$ I will just switch back.
:)
If only I could return all my music bought under the US account for a refund and re-purchase at the lower currency price.
Getting a Canadian CC isn't as easy as it was to get an American one. In the US your (my?) bank card also functions as a debit card from visa/mastercard. So merely having a bank card generally means you can buy stuff online because it functions as a visa/mastercard. Not so in Canada. Your bank card is not affiliated with a credit card company, instead it is part of the Interac network, which allows you to make purchases with it everywhere that accepts Interac (which is everywhere (except Tim Hortons)). So you would need to procure a Canadian billing address, a Canadian bank account, then a Canadian credit card.
good luck
paul reinheimer
I heard a rumour that Telstra / NineMSN had put up serious obstacles to preventing this from happening, but I've not be able to see it confirmed either way.
Anything reported in the press is insubstantial: David Frith on recent iTunes releases
Australia's record industry also has a powerful lobby. They almost managed to kill parallel imports, and seem to be able to recruit high profile personalities (eg, Molly Meldrum) to spout the party line.
I'd be interested to know what is really going on. But it's no use expecting to see any journalists dig up the facts, given publications like the Sydney Morning Herald's long-term hostility to the iPod.
(How's this: when publishing a definitive review of MP3 players about a year ago, they omitted all reference to *the* MP3 player! They have to pay lip service to it now it's such a big hit, but most reviews damn it with faint praise. I think Creative must pay them more for their advertising.)
Canadian credit cards are mostly the same as US cards: Visa, MasterCard, AMEX...
... and the rest of the world. The catch is, the store has the ability to know if your card was emitted by a canadian (or wherever) bank. And your billing address must be canadian too.
No sig
"OUR ARMY COULD KICK YOUR ARMY'S ASS!"
Haha! The joke's on you bud, we don't even have an army!
...with step one? Just get a PO Box from Canada Post. You don't need your own plot of land, a little box in Macs next to the frosty machine will do just fine.
Besides, you couldn't by $10 of land anywhere in Canada (even in Winnipeg). Even $10 US--especially since at the rate the US dollar is tanking it'll be at par with the Canadian dollar in a year and with the peso by the end of the decade if the trend were to continue that long.
BTW...this is how Canadians get HBO--they get a PO box in Montana and order DirecTV. Can't see why the same strategy in reverse wouldn't work for USians lookin' for cheap iTunes.
Partitioned markets are never more efficient than an equivalent free market, in the macroeconomic sense. Your argument is not from the perspective of efficiency -- it's an argument from the perspective of profit maximization by producers.
Your efficiency argument is circular because it's only valid in an inefficient market, where producers enjoy non-market controls. In a free market, purchasers can arbitrage away artificial pricing distinctions. This leads to greater market efficiency. Canadians who purchase music at lower prices would resell them to Americans, rebalancing the artificial pricing distinction imposed by the producers. While this could happen today, there are enough frictional market restrictions due to the credit card requirements and DRM transfer requirements to prevent it happening on a meaningful economic scale.
Don't confuse market efficiency with producer price maximization.
DISCLAIMER... THIS POST IS NOT INTENDED TO BE LEGAL ADVICE!!!!! Why should Canadians pay at all..... making digital copies of a recorded performance (for personal use) does not appear to be illegal in Canada according to its Copyright Act language: "80. (1) Subject to subsection (2) that act of reproduction all or any substantial part of (a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording, . . . onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording." Cite: Copyright Act R.S., c. C-30, s. 80 (1985).
Actually, you CAN buy a CD in Canada and bring it back without paying duty on it *if* you follow the US Customs regulations on total dollar amounts and frequency of purchase. I used to do that when I lived closer to Canada (heck, I even ordered from Canadian music store web sites - I just didn't do it frequently).
. there used to be a sig here.....
Or Canadian Tire money....
:) That's obviously no longer the case as the US$ has tanked for the past 18 months...
For non-Canadian Slashdotters... Canadian Tire is a chain of stores here in Canada that specialises in automobile parts and hardware. Its hugely popular and one of the few homegrown stores here that have fought off the onslaught of US box stores.
They have a loyalty program of sorts, where they give you "Canadian Tire Money" for a % of your purchase (something like 2%?). This is one of the oldest loyalty programs in Canada, as I can remember my dad having Canadian Tire $ in the 1970s, and it must have gone back farther than that.
From time to time, the $ is so popular that people will trade up for it at cash value. Also, from tiem to time, it will be dispensed as 'real' money from cash machines or store tellers due to human error. These make for amusing situations.
The joke for the last few years was that Canadian Tire $ exchanged better with the US $ than our own currency.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
PLEASE people, mark these links with 'NSFW' so that I don't get canned when I click a seemingly innocuous link.