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iTunes Accepts PayPal
lemist writes "Apple Computer Inc. on Friday said customers of its iTunes online music store can now use eBay Inc.'s online payment service PayPal to buy songs and audiobooks, becoming the second major online music store to do so. Story here."
I don't know how they can accept PayPal and still make a profit. Doesn't PayPal charge a per transaction fee on top of the percentage fee?
Can overseas buyers buy from iTunes USA @ USD 99 cents?
I've been looking for "useful" shops that accept PayPal so that I can use those money without losing on exchange rate.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
They Might Be Giants sell songs for $0.99US, too, and the $$ goes directly to the artists. Sorry, no PayPal.
Sig goes here.
Just in case you didn't know, allofmp3 exploits a loophole in Russian copyright law, thus they PAY NOTHING for their content from non-russian artists.
You might as well use Kazaa...It's ripping people off just the same.
I always pay with a credit card. I get no service fees. I get no annual fee. I pay it off every month. It is like having 30 days free use of money.
And on top of it I get 2-5% back on purchases.
And on top of that, my monthly budget can be downloaded and auto-categorized. Saves me many hours of work.
And on top of that, it is nice to be able to dispute a charge when you don't get what you paid for.
And on top of that, I am much more protected from fraud (all my cards have 0 liability).
So why wouldn't I want to use a credit card?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Parent brings up a good point though. Paypal money really is monopoly money. It's not guaranteed by the FDIC. I read somewhere a while back, maybe on /., how people's money is spread out amongst many regular bank accounts. If they went belly up, would customers lose their money. I think the only guarantee they can give is by faith, but not legally backed.
Topps is actually doing this kind of scheme with baseball cards through a program they call eTopps.
When you buy an eTopps card, you get an actual baseball card. However, unless you ask for it they never send the card to you, it's locked up in a secret vault where Topps maintains it in pristine condition. As long as you let your card stay in the vault, you can sell it on a special section of eBay.
New cards come out in "Intial Player Offerings" or "IPO"s where the cards are offered for direct purchase, but if too many people request the cards some get it and some don't, causing there to be an instant pent up demand for the card on the eBay trading floor.
It's almost exactly the scheme the parent poster is describing...
when their's Ebay? I'm serious. I just bought 30 CDs for ~$100 dollars (expensive japanese CDs no less). At 10 songs average (give or take) that's ~300 songs or ~.33 cents a song. Beats the hell out of iTunes. Yeah, you can't get everything one ebay, but you can't get everything on iTunes either. And I've got liner art, lyrics, and high quality pressed CDs that aren't nearly as susceptible to bit rot.
I guess it's nice getting _exactly_ the song you want, but still, I just don't get the appeal of iTunes. Unless the content providers start craming it down our throats by phasing out CDs (yeah, they probably will), I can't see it as being more than a passing fad after the novelty wears off.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
yeah but at least you dont have to ass around to get the song you want
most of the artists on allofmp3 are raking it in anyway by the billions of ppl who do buy cds - and who will continue to even if they were offered allofmp3 as an alternative
the record companies and the artists who *choose* to sign up to them can bloody well fix their distribution models when enough ppl get fed up and choose other methods
im sick of hearing about the poor artists - people in heaps of different industries relgularly get screwed because someone brings out a better way of doing their job or offering their services, and thats just business.
i would have thought you capitalists would be happy for the entrepreneurial russians, who bloody well have it harder than poor starving artists.
you hate commies but when they out-sell you you cant hack it. bah!
ok rant over.
As someone who draws erotic cartoons for a living, I learned early on about how Paypal refuses to perform any payment transactions involving adult material (in fact, they'll fine sellers $500 for adult material).
So how does that differ from iTunes, where any variety of "Parental Advisory" labeled music can be dowloaded?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
You know what? good for Russia. The ol' US of A used to be the biggest IP thief in history around the times of Charles Dickens. Have a read at this.
Having no IP protection to speak off (including patents) was a great way to exploit other countries works of arts and inventions without having to pay for royalties. For a while it helped make the US what it is now: the richest country in the world by far.
For the last 50 years or so the US have turned around and want to make everyone pay through the nose for Hollywood films, pop music, brand-name drugs and sport shoes.
It's only fair that the US and the West in general gets a taste of it's own medicine. I feel for the RIAA but I won't be so sad if it flounders and goes away. Music will not stop. If worse comes to worse you can always make your own or go to a local concert.
While I like very much the concept of PayPal - which allows me to quickly send money without revealing my CC number, they do behave like nasty monopolists and terminate accounts without telling the reason why.
Look what they did to Clay, the artist of Sexy Losers - they terminated his account just like that, without explaining anything besides claiming he violated their TOS.. and they did that to many other people.
Slashdot community, please notice: I am looking for a girlfriend.
Nave H. Weiss
And of course those that do reasearch on Paypal and find the paypalwarning.com and paypalsucks.com websites - also don't realize:
- Posts that praise paypal are deleted [often]
- Posts that try to assist users with problems are deleted
- Paypalsucks.com is sponsored by the competition - yowcow
- You are allowed to post anonymously and as registered
- There's a disporportionate # of comments to registered users
Paypal Ain't My Buddy
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
You usually don't pay tax on a gift card. You would be double taxed because you'd pay sales tax on the gift card, and then you'd pay sales tax on purchases with the gift card. But now that I think about it, Apple collected sales tax when I ordered a $25 gift card online. And then they will probably collect tax on the iTunes as well. It's only supposed to be one or the other. Now I'm mad!!!
You may be looking for allofmp3.com, a perfectly legal digital music seller (RIAA propoganda notwithstanding), accepts paypal and will sell music to anyone, in any country, in just about any format you care for (including unencumbered versions of Apple aac if that's your thing).
They are located in Russia, licensed by the Russian eqiuvelent of the RIAA, and with current favorable exchange rates the music costs pennies on the dollar compared to iTunes or other western resellers. What's more, they have a better selection of music one cannot find at iTunes.
(reposted in defiance of censorship)
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy