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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. 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.
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
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 $1 CAD.
as an indie musician with stuff on iTunes, they don't have it together internally. I've had sales from 6 months ago that I haven't been paid for yet.
it's great that they're opening these new outlets and all but they're lacking in some basics.
I'm a Canadian, and up untill today I have been buying songs from iTunes USA with my US credit card, so I can only assume that the reverse is also possible. Should the slide of the US greenback continue (the canadian dollar is already at a 10+ year high against the USD) and CDN$ > 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.)
...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.