Alrgiht, it's a big step forward, offering DRM-free tracks. But you should not have to pay an extra $0.30 for it. For a dozen song album, it costs $15.48 to download. And if I want to play it in my car, I have to keep stock of blank CDs. And storing recorded CDs in say a visor, where the disc only sticks out from the fold by less than half an inch, makes it much more difficult to recognize a CD than a one that you bought and have album art printed onto the disc. Sure you can buy and print disc labels for your burned albums, but that is just more work and money. You can buy the same dozen song album from a Best Buy from 10-13 bucks. You don't have to keep blank cds or print labels (save for mix cds and what not, but the quantity required to keep on hand is reduced) and you get album art and, most of the time, lyrics. AND, you can rip it to your computer in whatever format you want, DRM-free. Why the $#!% would I want to spend more time, money and effort downloading an album from iTunes? Where's the value? I'll admit, it's an exchange of conveniances, but it's still not worth it.
When you find a subscription based, DRM-free music service, let me know. That would be a consumer friendly business model, but I doubt I will ever see it. It would allow me to download as much music as I want for the same rate.
A more realistic, model would be $0.59 a DRM-free track. That would be a $7.08 dozen track album, and a good value. It would still be a $0.70 profit cut for the labels, but would be supplemented by increased sales volume.
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Alrgiht, it's a big step forward, offering DRM-free tracks. But you should not have to pay an extra $0.30 for it. For a dozen song album, it costs $15.48 to download. And if I want to play it in my car, I have to keep stock of blank CDs. And storing recorded CDs in say a visor, where the disc only sticks out from the fold by less than half an inch, makes it much more difficult to recognize a CD than a one that you bought and have album art printed onto the disc. Sure you can buy and print disc labels for your burned albums, but that is just more work and money. You can buy the same dozen song album from a Best Buy from 10-13 bucks. You don't have to keep blank cds or print labels (save for mix cds and what not, but the quantity required to keep on hand is reduced) and you get album art and, most of the time, lyrics. AND, you can rip it to your computer in whatever format you want, DRM-free. Why the $#!% would I want to spend more time, money and effort downloading an album from iTunes? Where's the value? I'll admit, it's an exchange of conveniances, but it's still not worth it.
When you find a subscription based, DRM-free music service, let me know. That would be a consumer friendly business model, but I doubt I will ever see it. It would allow me to download as much music as I want for the same rate.
A more realistic, model would be $0.59 a DRM-free track. That would be a $7.08 dozen track album, and a good value. It would still be a $0.70 profit cut for the labels, but would be supplemented by increased sales volume.
It's just the way it should be.