Apple to credit song purchases towards full album sales?

Also known as "the feature that should've been there from the start," it sounds like Apple is finally working out deals with labels to allow for the purchase of singles on iTunes to act as credit towards the purchase of the full album from whence they came, at least within a limited time frame. Such a deal has been rumored before, but this time the word is from the New York Times, citing "people involved in the negotiations," which sounds decidedly less sketch. Obviously, there's still much to learn, since we don't know what kind of time period Apple has in mind, and we don't know how many labels it has on board, but we can think of many a DRM slave music consumer that would benefit from this deal -- and don't get us started on season passes.

[Via Ars Technica]

[kingofwale @ Mar 28th 2007 7:59PM]

nice work.. and ABOUT TIME... a few other services are already doing it.

Here's my question, if I made such purchase before, will I get credits back?

[Jaxim @ Mar 28th 2007 8:11PM]

personally, I'd rather see a discount given to the amount of songs I buy. The idea of an album should be dead in the digital age. I say, award people for buying a lot of music at one time. Of course, I'll never buy DRM-infected files so whatever they do really won't affect me. (I'll stick to purchasing my music at used CD stores if I ever need to get any new music.)

[andrew harrison @ Mar 28th 2007 8:19PM]

an album isn't just a marketing tool though, a lot of artists make an album of songs that are meant to be heard as an album.

[randomthot @ Mar 28th 2007 11:43PM]

I agree! The album should be dead! Now I'm going to head over to the used CD store to buy a new....album? Oh wait...

[Jaxim @ Mar 28th 2007 11:38PM]

some "artists" do produce albums that are worthy, but most singers/vocalists should only produce one song at a time.

[Jaxim @ Mar 29th 2007 12:47AM]

Until they sell, non DRM songs, buying album CDs is unfortunately the best way to get music. I usually wait until songs are old enough to be placed on a "Best of" album, before purchasing a CD. If I want a song that is couple with terrible album songs, then I'm out of luck. But usually I don't buy new music, so I'm never in the position.

[mjb @ Mar 28th 2007 8:18PM]

What they need to do now is let me re-download video content that I had downloaded before they doubled the resolution. No fair that I have to pay twice!

[Peter @ Mar 28th 2007 9:20PM]

They should give you a discount for buying the whole album. 99 cents per song, but a 12 song album should be $10 or something like that.
The labels make buying full albums not economical and then bitch that people are only buying singles.

Actually I think all of it is too expensive. I'm not going to pay $12 for 12 DRMed songs that effectively cost them nothing to deliver to me when I can buy a packaged physical CD with no DRM for $14. For music will all those restrictions and less cost of goods, it should be way less expensive.

[Steve @ Mar 28th 2007 9:35PM]

"They should give you a discount for buying the whole album. 99 cents per song, but a 12 song album should be $10 or something like that."

Peter,

Have you ever looked at the Itunes music store?

[Peter @ Mar 29th 2007 7:29AM]

Steve, Yes I have. There are examples where the whole album is $10 (especially new releases), but there is plenty of stuff that is priced at 99 cents x number of tracks.
Especially for the older stuff, it's absurd. Why am I still paying $14 for a 10 year old album that isn't popular?

[Zadillo @ Mar 28th 2007 11:21PM]

Cool....... this definitely sounds like a no-brainer from the label's perspective. I can personally think of at least a few times where I sort of decided against buying a full album because I had already bought one or two tracks, and couldn't justify the idea of paying for them again. Doing this would definitely make me more likely to buy full albums from bands after purchasing and liking a few of their songs.

[kingofwale @ Mar 28th 2007 11:22PM]

If I am going to buy a whole album, I'd go to store and get an UN-DRMed CD. you pay a few bucks more, but you get a CD and case.

[Music Interfaces @ Mar 29th 2007 4:49AM]

"The idea of an album should be dead in the digital age" and "The album should be dead." Why's that? I agree with Andrew Harrison - it's an artform subject to good and bad examples. Sometimes an album's crap, sometimes it's wonderful, but iTunes' pricing model hasn't helped the format. If iTMS does make this change, it'll be good news.

[shogun @ Mar 29th 2007 7:44AM]

This feature is at the iTunes stores right now. It's called "Complete My Album".

[calender @ Mar 29th 2007 12:47PM]

As I read this article I was listening to "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" by Modest Mouse. ITunes sold me the single "Dashboard" 2 months ago and credited me the .99 for the whole album when it came out a few weeks ago. So I guess they've already started doing this. Perhaps this contributed to its #1 Billboard Status??

[Derek Katz @ Mar 30th 2007 7:23PM]

A cool, if overdue, idea.

Incidentally, it should be 'whence', not 'from whence'.