iTunes Europe - 1.29 Euros?

[arn]

According to MacPlus sources, Apple's iTunes Music Store for Europe should be launched in France and other countries starting in mid-june. More countries will be added over time.

MacPlus claims that the songs will be priced at 1.29 Euros as compared to $.99 in the United States. The cost is due to the licensing fees and taxes

[skunk]

Originally Posted by arn

http://www.macplus.org/magplus/artic...d_article=6093

Human translation please.

thanks
arn

iTMS Europe: set for June and at €1.29 per song?

From a source close to the major labels, MacPlus has learned that iTMS Music Store Europe is in the final phase of optimization, but at any rate the per-song rate has been fixed at €1.29. This could seem expensive, above all in relation to the 99c US price, but since the amount payable to writers, performers, producers and labels has been fixed at 0.80€, if you add the 19.6% tax, bank charges and the store profit, it all adds up pretty quickly, especially if you want to create a viable, long-term business model.

In summary for the rest:
All being well, mid-June for iTMS availability in France and several other EU countries, and anyway before October, when four other challengers including Real are due to start.
iTMS moving towards video (no surprise there), iTunes increasingly compatible with QT since version 4. Clips already available.
Online store positioning itself to market Ring Tones for mobiles, evidently with the prospect of also providing a gadget to use them with. Rumoured evolution of the iPod combining music, video and phone to be shown in Paris.

That's the gist of it. There's more comment, mostly about the "mastodons" at the record labels, but no further "news".

[unfaded]

Sure it sucks, not being as cheap as the American (especially because the euro is stronger) iTMS, but it's hardly more expensive, and at least it's coming (and hey, it seems to be a lot of non-apple people doing this anyway. Hard to bitch out Apple for TAXES.)

[Windowlicker]

that's bull****! 1.29 euros for a song is almost the same I pay for my music that I buy on CD! how the hell can there be so big differences in taxes and licensing fees? I mean, 1€ is like $1,20! So the music in europe would cost about $1,5! nice one. I really hope this isn't true.. else the itmseu will fail

[filipp]

I know I'm not buying 'em for €1.29 a piece, I would accept €0.99, though
/ filipp

[Thanatoast]

Ouch. That sucks. I suppose it's better to have a store than to not, but man that's expensive. I'm not sure I'd pay a buck-fifty per song. The pricing schedule may make it viable for Apple, but how many songs do they have to sell to stay that way? At that price, it may be hard.

[NOV]

A imts song in Europe should be around € 0,85 (based on $ > € exchange rates), if it had a comparable USA tag.
But with general Apple pricing in mind, which always seems to be way higher outside USA, it does not really surprise me.

Pricing is moderate compared to another online music store (OD2), which charges € 1,79 for popular songs

[Veldek]

I thought the songs would cost 0.99€ plus taxes which would bring them to 1.15€ in Germany. That’s why I was willing to pay up to 1.19€, but 1.29€ is hard to accept.

[caveman_uk]

£0.90 a song - maybe for the occasional song that I would have got off of the P2P networks. But I won't buy albums if they want £9 for them (my guess going on the US 10x the single song price model). I'll buy the CD from play.com for the same money - that includes delivery - and I can rip it at a decent bitrate without restrictions. If whole albums were at £6 (the US price) I'd think about it.

[Colonel Panik]

Watch the iTMS fail in Europe (at those prices). €1.29 per song will work out at €12.99 for an album. That ain't gonna work.

It really sucks how the American market gets preferencial treatment from almost every multi-national. Take the Nikon D70. 4-6 weeks wait in Europe for the camera. In the States, 1-2 days. And then they shaft us with prices which are significantly more expensive than the dollar price (when exchange rates are taken into account). Sometimes living in Europe is a rip-off. I think that we subsidize US prices.

[AlanAudio]

So Apple defends the price of $0.99 as being appropriate for US customers, but considers that 50% more is fine for Europeans.

Presumably that isn't the same Apple which recently denied disadvantaging European customers.

[UKMacBod]

... Well that roughly translates to 85p in the UK.

Now if that includes VAT, that's not too bad, is it?

[caveman_uk]

Originally Posted by AlanAudio

Presumably that isn't the same Apple which recently denied disadvantaging European customers.

I did wonder how Jobs' managed to say that with a straight face. Maybe the reality distortion field was especially powerful that day?

[whooleytoo]

That price could be bad for iTMS US as well. If iTMS Europe succeeds at these prices, it'll just encourage the RIAA to raise prices in the US to something similar.

[eric_n_dfw]

Nearly 20% in taxes! Ouch!

Tracks cost me $1.07 each after the 8.25% sales tax where I live. Is the 19.6% tax a EU wide thing or would individual local gov'ts add on any further taxes?

[Vroem]

US song: $0,99 = €0,83
EU song: $1,53 = €1,29

I can live with that, but only if they offer high (musical) quality classical music, because that's what lots of Europeans like.

[iBook]

One of the key differences in pricing for iTMS in the United States vs. Europe is taxation.

Taxes in the U.S. aren't as high as they are in Europe, and there is no national sales tax. Our sales taxes are levied at the state and county level and are not reflected in the "sales price" as they are in Europe.

The 99 cent price tag you see for American consumers is a bit deceptive because it does not include the sales tax.

In the state and county where I live, the tax is 7%. An iTMS purchase actually costs me $1.06. In other American states, it would be more or less depending on the actual tax rate.

[caveman_uk]

Originally Posted by eric_n_dfw

Nearly 20% in taxes! Ouch!

Tracks cost me $1.07 each after the 8.25% sales tax where I live. Is the 19.6% tax a EU wide thing or would individual local gov'ts add on any further taxes?

The sales taxes in various countries vary across the EU. The UK's is 17.5% but around 20% is pretty average AFAIK

[gekko513]

Is the tax rate 19,6% in the whole of EU? I thought it was 25% in Denmark.

It is 24% in Norway, but we're not in the EU so it doesn't count

edit: oops ... should've read the most recent posts

[UKMacBod]

Exactly - people are forgetting that the price given INCLUDES a fixed pan-european tax rate - iTMS USA is 99c plus tax...

However, VAT tax is different in each country - as previously stated it's 17.5% in the UK and different in other places. So I'm not quite sure how they've managed to get a fixed tax rate, or whether this figure only applies to France?

[JDOG_]

I don't know about all this talk about Americans getting the better deal. In all my travelling of Europe in the past 3 months (I'm a US citizen studying in London for the last 5 months) I can honestly say that there's more money floating around the EU than the U.S. and it's Europe's fault for providing such large taxation that would lead up to 1,29 euros a song.

You can't place blame on the American iTMS for having cheap prices when IT'S the country providing the majority of the music on its service from within its borders to the people in IT'S country.

I can also say with a straight face that people in Europe are getting ripped off on the prices of most international goods, with a drumset that costs $800 in the states costing £800 or 750 Euros...also CDs tend to be a bit ridiculous with a $9.99 CD running at £11, 30 swiss francs, 18 euro and so on.

If you don't like it, don't buy it.

[eric_n_dfw]

Originally Posted by Vroem

US song: $0,99 = €0,83
EU song: $1,53 = €1,29

I can live with that, but only if they offer high (musical) quality classical music, because that's what lots of Europeans like.

hehe - I thought Europeans all liked Dieter from Sprockets!

[iBook]

Originally Posted by AlanAudio

So Apple defends the price of $0.99 as being appropriate for US customers, but considers that 50% more is fine for Europeans.

Presumably that isn't the same Apple which recently denied disadvantaging European customers.

This point seems to be overlooked....

the amount payable to writers, performers, producers and labels has been fixed at 0.80€

Are you suggesting Apple sell music on iTMS at a loss? That it subsidize European consumers because of licensing fees and tax rates it doesn't control?

[winmacguy]

Originally Posted by JDOG_

I don't know about all this talk about Americans getting the better deal. In all my travelling of Europe in the past 3 months (I'm a US citizen studying in London for the last 5 months) I can honestly say that there's more money floating around the EU than the U.S. and it's Europe's fault for providing such large taxation that would lead up to 1,29 euros a song.

You can't place blame on the American iTMS for having cheap prices when IT'S the country providing the majority of the music on its service from within its borders to the people in IT'S country.

I can also say with a straight face that people in Europe are getting ripped off on the prices of most international goods, with a drumset that costs $800 in the states costing £800 or 750 Euros...also CDs tend to be a bit ridiculous with a $9.99 CD running at £11, 30 swiss francs, 18 euro and so on.

If you don't like it, don't buy it.

Our CDs are pretty expensive in NZ as well. But hey welcome to European taxes and beaurcracy!

[123]

Originally Posted by Vroem

US song: $0,99 = €0,83
EU song: $1,53 = €1,29

I can live with that, but only if they offer high (musical) quality classical music, because that's what lots of Europeans like.

No, that's what you can't easily download from p2p networks.