Why is iTunes pricing so much more than Amazon

Once again - as noted - you can blame the content owners - Apple is just a distributor.

Also note that Apple is a huge company with lots of share holders that do expect the compay to make a profit.

If you don't like the model then you can vote with your pocket book and spend your money else where.

MJ

CharlieM78 wrote:

Well I believe that is incorrect.

You will believe what you want.

Apples DRM limits you to only using certain apple products.

All DRM will limit you to something.

I should be able to play purchased content on any device I choose

You mean you think this is the way it should work (and I agree).

Can you name any DRM encrypted media/source that can be played on ANY device? No, because it does not exist.

And apples also does have a say in the pricing

What does this have to do with anything?

I think the difference in price is that Itunes sells the HD version and Amazon Instant video is standard version. If you click the Amazon HD link the price is usually the same as Itunes HD. Amazon also recently made a change were you cannot download HD video with Amazon unbox. You have to use a specific tv, Roku, Tivo,or the new Kindle HD. I stopped buying videos from because of this..and the fact they don't let you use Amazon Unbox on OS X. I buy my digital music and books from Amazon, HD Movies and tv shows from Itunes.

I watched DJANGO UNCHAINED tonight. Checked iTunes first: $5.99. Redbox: $1.50 for Blu Ray.

Needless to say, I drove less than a mile to the Redbox.

Their pricing stops me from being a regular customer.

Once again - as noted - you can blame the content owners - Apple is just a distributor.

If you don't like the model then you can vote with your pocket book and spend your money else where.

At the end of the day the content owners were the winners no matter which way you decided to watch the movie. You paid to watch so they made money regardless.

MJ

Mike, you can repeat your postiion all day long. I don't care who is responsible for the overpricing of rentals through iTunes -- I want it to be a product I can feel good about using. I care that they hear from enough lost customers that the BOTH sides do something about it. Apple is half of the partnership with each vendor. They negotiate deals and end up with a price. They most certainly could do something about it -- pretending that they have nothing to do with it is flat out wrong.

Jack - it is not my position/opinion - it is the reality. I really don't care as I can always vote as you did with my pocket book.

You can give feed back to Apple via the iTunes dropdown menu - Provide feed back.

MJ

I found this thread after doing a web search. I agree that when I want to buy a movie for my iPad, it seems every search comes up with higher prices for iTunes. Latest example, The Natural: $7 SD/$11 HD with Amazon versus $11/$20 with iTunes. That's a big gap. But I accept that apple can charge me what they want and I can buy where I want. My only question (which is why I did the search) is whether one may be better than the other such that I should consider iTunes notwithstanding the higher prices. Anyone have any thoughts?

You are paying for the movie content, copyright, etc.

No matter where or who you buy a movie, the copyright holder/movie studio/production company/actors/production people/etc. have to be paid.

The price of the disc itself is insignificant in the price of the movie.

The Netflix streaming service is all together different. When you buy a movie on iTunes or Amazon or whoever, you now have a "movie file" that you can play and watch, basically forever. With Netflix streaming, you don't. You only have access to that movie, or TV show, for as long as Netflix's contract with the content-provider to valid.

As to why iTunes is higher priced than Amazon, or any other service... who knows...

I have been noticing this, too, it's been a long time since anybody asked me to pay $20 for a 20-year old movie like the Princess Bride. Or $10 for the content in SD mode, whereas the DVD is selling on Amazon right now for $4.99. Maybe there are 3 reasons :

(a) Apple promises to back up and restore the content to your device if the device fails, more or less forever. Admittedly, it costs them 4c per movie to do this (2c/hr to stream NetFlix @ 2 Mbps), but nobody else is doing this.

(b) The media you are getting DOES NOT wear out, in part because of (a) Above. All other forms of media, you are really renting the content until it gets lost or worn out and scratched and starts to skip on your player

(c) The iPod/iPhone dispenses with all the storage and management hassles for DVDs and Blu-Rays and the format is far, far more compact that DVDs and Blu-Rays. You are saving space in your house!

Imagine that some company developed a movie media called "infinite fingernails" - fingernail-sized disks (or smaller) that NEVER wear out! That's part of what you're paying for when you buy content from Apple - you are paying for infinite fingernails.

systemBuilder2 wrote:

(a) Apple promises to back up and restore the content to your device if the device fails, more or less forever.

Actually, no they don't. Apple does not claim all your purchases will be available to you forever. They can't make this promise since they do not own the copyrights to the content they sell; they are just the retailer. It is your responsiblity to download and backup all our purchases in case of something happening to them. The copyright holders can remove items from the iTunes Store at any time which will then remove those items from your purchase history and you will lose the ability to re-download them. So... back them up.

I don't know why Apples albums are so expencive. I have some examples on apple almost all albums are 9.99 like minecraft volume alpha on C418 (Artist) website it is 3.99. If you do the math apple gets more money than the artist. For Terraria iTunes asks for 9.99 their website 4.99 do they are making equil so that's expencive.For at least some cases Mike Johnson 12 is wrong. The websites for the two albums I listed are http://c418.bandcamp.com/album/minecraft-volume-alpha and http://re-logic.bandcamp.com/album/terraria-soundtrack

Apple earns 30% no matter what. The price is set by the artist.

Zafoddy wrote:

The price is set by the artist.

The prices of music on the iTunes Store is set by the record labels. They decide whether they want a track to sell for $.99 or $1.29. Not the artist.

So we are to believe that the artist is the one making thse prices so high? I have a very hard time with that. Just so I am clear with all that has been said here in defense of Appple. Major League the movie is 17.99 on iTunes, and currently $9.49 usd on Amazon. On sale from the previous price of $14.99 usd. Please everyone that wants to respond in a snarky defensive way please hear me out.

I am to believe that artists and movie houses are forcing Apple to charge 8.50 more for a title than Amazon and Apple has zero to do with this? Apple's off the top 30% has nothing to do with this? Guys you are fooling yourselves here. Even at the previous price of 14.99 we are talking a physical Blu Ray here.. I think I forgot to mention that. Amazon is selling the "Wild Thing" edition of Major Leage for 9.49. Apple is selling their HD version for $17.99. I want to believe that this is caused by someone else, but I just can't. Is Amazon getting 30% off the top? I highly doubt it. I am aware that Amazon is notorious for selling items at a loss, but this steep? Doesn't make snese to me. Competition or not, Amazon still is running a business.

Bottom line for me is I want to buy more from iTunes but I can't justify the prices on a lot of things. I seem to find some decent deals here and there on iTunes for movies, and some gems from time to time in the music section. Overall comparitivly speaking it's cheaper to buy a hard copy from someplace else. It's a shame really....becasue just a few bucks less on Apple's behalf would make them a LOT more cash. I think the folks here confused by the higher prices woudl definitely agree to that.