[9th May 2007: The link on the iTunes store is now "fixed" and pointing to the bonus track version]
Anyone who’s used iTunes has seen this kind of thing before, but I thought I would highlight it to the many casual users who probably don’t.
Be careful when buying music from iTunes, they might be ripping you off.
At the time of posting this Travis is advertising it’s album “The Boy With No Name” on the frontpage. So 99% of Travis fans are going to click through and maybe buy it.. little knowing that the album that costs £9.99 isn’t the best value for money because there is another version of this album with a bonus track and a full £2 cheaper!
Great(!) So already after giving iTunes your business they’re ripping you off with a version of the album which works out track-for-track significantly more expensive (76.9p/track compared to the other bonus track version costing 57.1p/track).
The differences between the albums are basically in the advertised one you get instead of a full extra bonus track “Perfect Heaven Space 3:50″ a digital booklet.. hmm, now maybe I’m making a wild assumption here but I’m guessing that given an informed choice, 99.9% of customers would take the bonus track version because, let’s face it you come to iTunes store to buy music.
[Here is a screen grab of what I saw in the iTunes store]
For the direct iTunes links (if you want to see for yourself):-
- Advertised, overpriced with digital booklet, but one less tune album (£9.99)
- Bonus track version available if you search or go to the artist directory (£7.99)
(Screenshot and links valid as from 8th May 2007.)
This all begs the questions:
- Do the artists themselves know what’s going on; it’s their music, surely they’d prefer you to have the extra track and enjoy the music they’ve made. (I’ll email Travis and let him know
) - Why are we [people of the UK] being ripped us off like this? We pay £0.79/track on iTunes more than most (all other?) countries.
- Why not do the sensible thing and make the bonus track version a “default” as it’s the best value for money and include digital booklets in for-free? (they’re usually nothing more than what you’d get in the front of your cd case anyway)
- Why not in the user-interface list the other available versions of this album so people can make an informed choice? (the “see all albums” link shows all the artists’ albums, not the versions of the one you are viewing)
… anyway, bottom line, to ensure you’re not being ripped-off, always check the artists directory for all the available versions and work out which one is best value.
If iTunes would like to comment I’d be more than willing to post their response.
– Dan.
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