iTunes Music Store, you lost some business today.
At 99¢ per song, iTMS lost $13.86 to Amazon.ca. Why? Angela heard a Rufus Wainright song on an NPR program about 4 or 5 months ago. It is a bonus track found only on foreign releases of a collection of B‑sides called “Want Two.” The song is called “Quand Vous Mourez de Nos Amours” (in French, obviously). I went to Tower Records to buy it, and they don’t have an import section anymore. Further, even if they did have it, they’d want $35 for it. I know that Amazon.fr carried the album for a while, and we actually had thought we just buy a copy while in Paris. However, when in Paris for only a few days, you tend to not waste time looking for relatively obscure albums.
Today, Angela called me asking how to buy songs from the Canadian iTunes music store, because they had the song she was interested in. It isn’t carried on the American iTMS. Why? In whose mind does this make any sense? Where are the vast sums of money to be collected on having songs that cannot be found in this country? How can an industry complain about illegal downloads when this sort of thing drives people to do just that? I want to buy my music. I want Rufus Wainright to get compensated for recording weird little French songs. I want to be able to download it to my iPod and listen immediately. With infinite shelf space and nearly zero cost of delivery, why is this not possible?
iTunes Music store lost a little money today. Angela probably would have only bought the one song for 99¢ and that’s not going to make or break any business, musician, or consumer. However, if Chris Anderson is to be believed, when multiplied by the number of obscure songs that only a handful of people in this country want, the amount of money is staggering. At least Amazon.ca has no qualms with shipping to me. Fortunately, neither does Amazon.co.uk or any other Amazon store around the world I’ve bought music and movies from. I’ll continue to do it, and I’m not alone. Someday, maybe the executives and legal department will wake up and see the profits there. Sadly, they’re more likely to try and sue me and get me and those like to stop. That’s okay, there’s always bit-torrent.