Why is iTunes pricing so much more than Amazon

Oaky, there is one example.

I don't see that it applies to "everything".

"They don't need to overcharge customers to make money they are doing just fine and will continue to for years to come. I can only hope they start offering better deals."

No, but I would not expect them to take a loss on a sale simply because Amazon does so.

iTunes is too expensive but in my opinion, for the folowing reasons.

Real Steel on DVD on Amazon.com is 16.49$ but in iTunes its 24.99$ for purchase. I wonder what price walking in Walmart would be?

Even disregarding the price of iTunes "competitors" how can they justify 25$ for literally nothing? I'm not buying a physical CD or DVD, there's no case, no printed paper, no packaging, no shipping to a mailbox, no transporting to a store there's nothing. In this case someone from Touchstone Pictures sat in a chair and sent iTunes ones nad zeros and then apple sits in a chair and send me ones and zeros for that price? And they wonder why some people pirate movies? They wonder why I dont have a single movie on my iPad3? I checked the price for movies for the first time just now and was shocked. Unbeleavable!

I'm certain their sales would skyrocket and my collection would be full of iTunes movies if the prices were lower. In my opinion they're missing a gold mine, 25$ is out of this world.

i also wish that itunes was cheaper. i like usin lg itunes to buy music, but when i spend my momney on a song i fe l ripped off and i feel like im wasting my money when i can go download the exact same song off legal sounds for 9 cents. oh, but wait! apple songs come in a different format, and has an un noticable improvement in sound quality. totally worth the extra 1.20.

now im not aaying they should lower thier prices to 9 cents a song. but aomthing more reasonable! like 75 cents. more people would buy the music therefore increasing the money they earn. even if they dont make money, they atill have like 80 billion dollars in the bank. they should sell it so they just barely make a profit on each song. it will add up over time.

crist_or_trent wrote:

i also wish that itunes was cheaper. i like usin lg itunes to buy music, but when i spend my momney on a song i fe l ripped off and i feel like im wasting my money when i can go download the exact same song off legal sounds for 9 cents.

Note that "Legal sounds" are not really legal.

Not a single penny in royalties has gone to any artist or label. They do not abide by international or Russian copyright laws.

and you give your CC info to them? That is funny...

Do you mean compared to other sites. Or are you like me and think paying $39.99 for a TV season (24 for example) when there is no overhead eg retail outlet, store employees, physical media is a little ridiculous? And to top it off its DRM encrypted so you can't use your purchased content on other programs like XBMC.

I would like to purchase movies and TV shows but the fact that they are encrypted and cost as much as retail is a huge deterrent. I'm have trouble finding out even how to remove the DRM.

You missed the point of my comment. I said I would like to purchase iTunes content but remove the drm so that it can be used in XBMC. All I was doing was pointing out that most pricing structures are based on the previously mentioned overhead and since there is none for digital content other than licensing the price should be lower than the retail counterparts.

CharlieM78 wrote:

You missed the point of my comment. I said I would like to purchase iTunes content but remove the drm

Note that this is not an Apple issue. It is the television/motion picture industry and the DMCA, which makes it illegal to remove DRM (and most countries have something similar to DMCA for copyright removal).

Well I believe that is incorrect. Apples DRM limits you to only using certain apple products. Drm is meant to prevent piracy not line apples pockets. I should be able to play purchased content on any device I choose be it android blackberry apple or whatever program I choose be it win media player QuickTime or XBMC. And apples also does have a say in the pricing since they make a huge profit hence the mark up.

You missed the point of HIS and most comments. With the lack of overhead eg retail outlet, store employees, physical media ... the prices of iTunes seem very bloated.

...and thus, I don't buy from them.

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?

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.

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...

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