iTunes sells 2 Million Songs

[FlamDrag]

FWIW:

I just saw my first commercial on TV for applemusic.com

A female young adult african-american singing "I'll be there."

Tag: Any song you want for 99c
Tag: AppleMusic.com

Nick@Nite during Cheers

 

[MacQuest]

Originally posted by FlamDrag
FWIW:

I just saw my first commercial on TV for applemusic.com

A female young adult african-american singing "I'll be there."

Tag: Any song you want for 99c
Tag: AppleMusic.com

Nick@Nite during Cheers

Me too.

The same little boy reciting Eminem's lyrics, but NOT the original verse that SJ showcased at the iTMS keynote where the kid curses [...rap $h!t...].

I was wondering if they would catch that before it aired.

Comedy Central during SouthPark @ 9:30pm.

 

[Snowy_River]

They seem to be marketing the iTMS fairly aggressively. I've seen these commercials a few times already. They're cute, and simple. I hope that it works.

(I imagine, though, that there will be a number of Windows users that think 'hey, cool', go to the site, and get pissed because it's Mac only right now.)

 

[Trimix]

apple employees stealing music ?
any more dirt on this ?

btw, saw on reuters that some people use i-tunes to swap music illegally and apple frantically trying to plug the holes - any info anybody ?

what surprised me was the reaction of the big 5, where unnamed sources were quoted as saying that this was just a minor flaw and that the overall success outweighed the few inconveniences...
have they licked blood or what ?

 

[dongmin]

Originally posted by herr_neumann
Anyone else wonder how many of these tracks have been bought by Jobs or other apple folks? I mean what is droping a million bucks on music down loads when it makes the stock climb $5 a share? And it sure has impressed the music industry folks..... Just a thought.

I hope you're joking. It would be a MAJOR securities fraud.

 

[jxyama]

If Jobs actually inflated the iTMS sales figure by dropping his own $$$, the market would know. In order to benefit from the rise in the stock prices, he would have to sell the stocks. When major shareholders like CEOs would try to unload the stocks, they come under pretty heavy scrutiny. Or at least they are supposed to.

Yeah, I guess I paid $4 to get the extra track, effectively.. But you see, I was vacationing in Japan. I had some yen to burn. Plus I grew up in Japan so I don't convert to dollars each time I buy stuff in Japan. I have my own scale in yen for what's expensive and what's not. I was a little more frugal when I was in Switzerland because I didn't have my own personal Swiss Franc scale so I had to convert to dollars to get a sense of how much things are...

If above didn't make sense, sorry... I hope it does to some people. It's weird, but it's true. (Plus if you compared prices in Japan to the U.S., you wouldn't be able to go anywhere or have much of a life.)

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by tduality
Don't think so. VAT in Switzerland is 7.6%. That's almost the same in US, isn't it?

I think prices are higher around here because the market accepts it. I don't expect the music industry to let that extra profit go.

VAT in the US is non-existent.

However, sales tax (which is shown as a separate charge and not part of the price of the product, because we Americans don't like hidden taxes) varies from state to state. Generally, if you buy from one state, from another state, online, there's no tax. So only residents of California would pay tax for Apple music.

Also remember that corporate income taxes and personal income taxes vary in other countries, and are reflected in prices.

 

[Trimix]

jxyama - it makes perfect sense to me -

 

[visor]

Originally posted by mara
"
I think that one of the biggest problems is taxes. For example every European country have their own VATs. Maybe it is not a problem but I really hope that if iTMS launches in Europe, it´ll not be more expensive than in USA. We are paying 499 euros for the 15 gig iPod. At the monent with one euro you get 1,1498 dollars.

Well, it's no problem then, right? Just say its 99 eurocent including tax - with the dollar dropping so quickly, providers (apple Music industry etc) will still get a hell of a bargain out of it.

 

[visor]

Originally posted by chewbaccapits
No kidding...I mean, no one complains how those crappy mp3 sound when they're free, but complain that the better format (AAC) sucks. Isn't this format better than what the competition was or is selling?

Well, mp3's aren't free, they are copies of the cd's you bought, and you can encode them anyway you want to

However, most of the time I don't notice any difference between CD and mp3. I couldnt yet test the Applestore Music apart from the 30s prelisten and it was ok for pop music. I'm not sure if I'd want to buy Classic music encoded like this. Check out the Wagner trailers

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
...Generally, if you buy from one state, from another state, online, there's no tax. So only residents of California would pay tax for Apple music....

This isn't true. For some time now, all states have asked internet sales companies to keep track of where the sale is being made to, and charge the appropriate amount of sales tax for it. Most internet companies still aren't doing this for legistical reasons (keeping track of what the sales tax in all of the various cities, counites, states, etc. are; reporting the sale to the proper authority for that state; and so on). Many states are now looking into making it law that all internet companies must keep track of sales tax. There is concern that this could drive a number of companies out of business due to added overhead.

However, where iTMS is concerned, they are already following these practices. No matter where you buy from, you pay the sales tax of your home. (i.e. the home that your creditcard statement gets mailed to.)

 

[visor]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
This isn't true. For some time now, all states have asked internet sales companies to keep track of where the sale is being made to, and charge the appropriate amount of sales tax for it. Most internet companies still aren't doing this for legistical reasons (keeping track of what the sales tax in all of the various cities, counites, states, etc. are; reporting the sale to the proper authority for that state; and so on). Many states are now looking into making it law that all internet companies must keep track of sales tax. There is concern that this could drive a number of companies out of business due to added overhead.

Strange, just yesterday I've read about it. It seems that in 1998 there was a law issued that internetsales do not have to pay salestax.

Full story is at
http://www.nga.org/nga/lobbyIssues/1,1169,C_LOBBY_ISSUE^D_782,00.html

It seems to be quite a mess right now.

 

[Ugg]

It seems to be quite a mess right now. [/B]

I agree with you on that one. As far as I understand if I order from a vendor that has a physical location in the state I live then I have to pay sales tax on that purchase. Say I order from REI.com. Even though the product comes from the Washington State warehouse of REI, since REI has stores in CA, I have to pay sales tax.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
This isn't true. For some time now, all states have asked internet sales companies to keep track of where the sale is being made to, and charge the appropriate amount of sales tax for it. Most internet companies still aren't doing this for legistical reasons (keeping track of what the sales tax in all of the various cities, counites, states, etc. are; reporting the sale to the proper authority for that state; and so on). Many states are now looking into making it law that all internet companies must keep track of sales tax. There is concern that this could drive a number of companies out of business due to added overhead.

However, where iTMS is concerned, they are already following these practices. No matter where you buy from, you pay the sales tax of your home. (i.e. the home that your creditcard statement gets mailed to.)

Ahh, yes. This is based upon the theory of "use tax", which says you still have to pay Washington sales tax for making purchases in tax-free Oregon. I'm not a lawyer, but to me, use tax reeks of bogusity. The government of Washington State has no jurisdiction in Oregon, where I am making the purchase. The only place they have the jurisdiction to tax me is when I am passing into Washington, at which point it would techinically be an "import duty". All good and well, except it is unconstitutional to place import duties at state lines. So if you do have to pay that tax, it's utter BS.

 

[Wry Cooter]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Ahh, yes. This is based upon the theory of "use tax", which says you still have to pay Washington sales tax for making purchases in tax-free Oregon. I'm not a lawyer, but to me, use tax reeks of bogusity. The government of Washington State has no jurisdiction in Oregon, where I am making the purchase. The only place they have the jurisdiction to tax me is when I am passing into Washington, at which point it would techinically be an "import duty". All good and well, except it is unconstitutional to place import duties at state lines. So if you do have to pay that tax, it's utter BS.

I think it is the lesser bull**** than that we would be going through, and paying representatives to go through 'on our behalf' that the "physical presence in a state = sales tax for you bub" was put in place so quickly and with relatively little fuss. Because, believe you me, the alternative they were trying to put in place otherwise was a total ban on internet sales altogether. All that has happened has that the laws have been extended from mail order rules, to web ordering.

You going to bitch and moan about taxes, you might as well bitch and moan about musicians getting a royalty for their songs... go back to your peer to peer pirate network if you don't like paying the piper

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Ahh, yes. This is based upon the theory of "use tax", which says you still have to pay Washington sales tax for making purchases in tax-free Oregon. I'm not a lawyer, but to me, use tax reeks of bogusity. The government of Washington State has no jurisdiction in Oregon, where I am making the purchase. The only place they have the jurisdiction to tax me is when I am passing into Washington, at which point it would techinically be an "import duty". All good and well, except it is unconstitutional to place import duties at state lines. So if you do have to pay that tax, it's utter BS.

No, that's backward. What I was talking about was if you live in Washington but buy from a company in Oregon, they are supposed to collect the appropriate sales tax from you and send it to Washington state.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Wry Cooter
I think it is the lesser bull**** than that we would be going through, and paying representatives to go through 'on our behalf' that the "physical presence in a state = sales tax for you bub" was put in place so quickly and with relatively little fuss. Because, believe you me, the alternative they were trying to put in place otherwise was a total ban on internet sales altogether. All that has happened has that the laws have been extended from mail order rules, to web ordering.

You going to bitch and moan about taxes, you might as well bitch and moan about musicians getting a royalty for their songs... go back to your peer to peer pirate network if you don't like paying the piper

People who use peer to peer networks are cowards who don't have the courage to shoplift. They are thieves, but they are also cowards. Shoplifters may be thieves, but at least they aren't in denial about it.

Taxes are another form of thievery, or to be more precise, extortion. We accept taxation as an alternative to anarchy, but paying one's taxes is still nothing more noble than a surrender to an extortionist. Paying musicians a royalty is compensation and payment for a product received.

Frankly, if you're unable to make that distinction, I'm not surprised you didn't catch the finer points of what I said about use tax. If I'm physically shopping in Jantzen Beach, Oregon, where there is no sales tax, Washington doesn't have the legal authority to collect a tax from that transaction. Likewise, if I am online, shopping from an online store in Oregon, Washington still doesn't have the legal authority to collect a tax, because we have things known as "laws" and a "Constitution" that prevent that. Aware as I am that you probably slept through your high school civics class, I can't blame you for your ignorance, but I must still point it out.

Originally posted by Snowy_River
No, that's backward. What I was talking about was if you live in Washington but buy from a company in Oregon, they are supposed to collect the appropriate sales tax from you and send it to Washington state.

I don't think the state government of Washington has the legal jurisdiction to impose taxes in Oregon. If I buy from a company in Oregon, there's no Oregon sales tax, so there should be no tax on the purchase. If Oregon wants to, they could tax me. They could very well send the money to Washington. But that's up to Oregon to decide whether or not to do that.

If I bought from a company in California, they may well tax me, and send the money to Sacramento--just like if I travelled there myself.

I think for a long time there was a federal moritorium on taxing the Internet. That must have expired. In any case, paying taxes is not what I'm questioning here. What I'm questioning is the legal authority of one state to collect taxes inside another state. There is no such authority. Washington's jurisdiction ends on the Oregon border. The only way they could tax Oregon-bought goods would be with an import duty, which is expressly unconstitutional.

If you can't understand ideas like "jurisdiction", "constitutional", or "legal authority", you have no standing to enter this conversation. However, if there's anyone here with some sort of legal knowledge or training, I would like to hear about whether or not my analysis is valid. I guess I'm asking if there's a lawyer around here, and failing that, a law student or educated citizen.

 

[Ugg]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac

Taxes are another form of thievery, or to be more precise, extortion. We accept taxation as an alternative to anarchy, but paying one's taxes is still nothing more noble than a surrender to an extortionist. Paying musicians a royalty is compensation and payment for a product received.

.

First, where in the Constitution does it say that one state cannot collect taxes from the citizens of its state for purchases they bring back into the state?

Taxation has existed in one way or another for centuries so I fail to see why you are bitching so loudly about it. Unless of course you don't use any public services whatsoever or would prefer to establish your own private city-state where you can reign supreme. If that is the case then you are free to jump ship anytime you want.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Ugg
First, where in the Constitution does it say that one state cannot collect taxes from the citizens of its state for purchases they bring back into the state?

Article I, Section 10:

No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolitely necessary for executing its inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasure of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress.

Again, any tax on Oregon-purchased goods returned to Washington would be an import duty. Even if Washington wanted to collect one, they only could if Congress let them, and then they'd have to give the money to the US Treasury, and not keep it themselves.

The entire issue of states putting duties and tariffs on each other is a major reason why we replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution.

Originally posted by Ugg
Taxation has existed in one way or another for centuries so I fail to see why you are bitching so loudly about it. Unless of course you don't use any public services whatsoever or would prefer to establish your own private city-state where you can reign supreme. If that is the case then you are free to jump ship anytime you want.

My specific complaint is not with taxation, but rather with unconstitutional taxation. The entire idea of the Constitution is that since we need government, we ought to restrict what government can do. As Thomas Paine wrote, "Government is at its best nothing but a necessary evil; at its worst, an intolerable one." It is the job of the Constitution to keep government at its best. Taxation is a form of that necessary evil, but is restricted by the Constitution to keep it from degenerating into that intolerable one.

For the record, I believe there are ways to finance a government without extortion, but that is outside the scope of this conversation.

 

[Ugg]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Article I, Section 10:



Again, any tax on Oregon-purchased goods returned to Washington would be an import duty. Even if Washington wanted to collect one, they only could if Congress let them, and then they'd have to give the money to the US Treasury, and not keep it themselves.

The entire issue of states putting duties and tariffs on each other is a major reason why we replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution.

What you are referring to is interstate commerce when what the Constitution is referring to are imports and exports. Meaning that anything that is imported into or exported from the United States. It is not totally clear, I admit, but they state that inspection fees can be charged but all duties and taxes are to go to the US treasury further indicating foreign trade not domestic. Methinks you are reading too much into too few words.

 

[Snowy_River]

While I'm not a lawyer, my father is a certified public accountant, so I know a little bit about taxes, and have access to even more knowledge, if need be.

The problem with your argument is the claim that taxing you on a purchase made in Oregon would be an import duty. That's simply not the case. The state would not be charging you money to bring the item in, but, rather, they would be charging you money to make the purchase. Strictly speaking, if you bought a car in Oregon, always operated it in Oregon, but registered it in your name (as a legal resident of Washington), you'd have to pay sales tax on the purchase, even if the car never entered into the state of Washington. The difference is that the state isn't taxing items (import duty), it's taxing its citizens.

Now, Oregon has no sales tax. Does that mean that they aren't getting money from taxes? Of course not. Oregon chooses to tax its citizens on the receiving end, in other words, income tax. And it doesn't matter where that income is made, either. (I know this from personal experience during a time that I was working for a company in Spokane, WA while I was a legal resident of Oregon, I still had to pay Oregon state income tax, even though I was temporarily living out of state.)

So, I guess I'm suggesting that looking at these taxes as taxes on things is wrong. You should look at them as taxes on you, and your behaviors (i.e. spending practices).

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
While I'm not a lawyer, my father is a certified public accountant, so I know a little bit about taxes, and have access to even more knowledge, if need be.

The problem with your argument is the claim that taxing you on a purchase made in Oregon would be an import duty. That's simply not the case. The state would not be charging you money to bring the item in, but, rather, they would be charging you money to make the purchase.

OK, that's the other problem. The purchase is made in Oregon. Oregon is outside the jurisdiction of the Washington state government. That's like saying if gambling is illegal in California, and I gamble in Nevada, the CHiPs can arrest me. A state can't tax, regulate, or ban anything that happens outside the state. That's what jurisdiction means.

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Now, Oregon has no sales tax. Does that mean that they aren't getting money from taxes? Of course not. Oregon chooses to tax its citizens on the receiving end, in other words, income tax. And it doesn't matter where that income is made, either. (I know this from personal experience during a time that I was working for a company in Spokane, WA while I was a legal resident of Oregon, I still had to pay Oregon state income tax, even though I was temporarily living out of state.)

Yes, I'm aware Oregon has an income tax. I'm not certain about the jurisdictional issues on that one either.

Originally posted by Snowy_River
So, I guess I'm suggesting that looking at these taxes as taxes on things is wrong. You should look at them as taxes on you, and your behaviors (i.e. spending practices).

But if those behaviors take place outside the state's jurisdiction, the state has no authority to tax those behaviors.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
...
But if those behaviors take place outside the state's jurisdiction, the state has no authority to tax those behaviors.

Unfortunately, that's not how the law works.

In like manner, the US Government has authority to tax income made by US citizens who are abroad, even though that is 'outside their jurisdiction'.

I guess, what I'm trying to say is that by claiming citizenship you are placing yourself under their jurisdiction. The gambling analogy is flawed, as it generally states in such laws that 'gambling is illegal within the state boundaries'. Now, it would be possible for a state to pass a law that said that it was illegal for its citizens to gamble, and that would then apply, regardless of whether the person was within the state or not.

 

[Ugg]

I've just spent the last half hour searching for information on the subject and it's a mess.

Nowhere could I find anyone questioning the legality of states taxing their citizens on purchases made from outside the state via the internet or via a paper catalog. You're barking up the wrong tree here Phil.

The two solutions I can see that would work is to either institute a federal VAT to be added to every purchase and then be distributed to states, counties and localities. That would mean more federal government intrusion into states rights to tax their own citizens it would also be impossible to do so fairly. Hardly a popular solution. The other would be to entirely abolish the use tax and institute a strict income tax. In general, income taxes are much less regressive and therefore considered more fair.

The reality of the fact is that most states are going broke and are desperately searching for new sources of income. The internet purchase tax is likely to become a nationwide reality unless congress comes up with a solution. It is unlikely to do so.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Unfortunately, that's not how the law works.

In like manner, the US Government has authority to tax income made by US citizens who are abroad, even though that is 'outside their jurisdiction'.

I guess, what I'm trying to say is that by claiming citizenship you are placing yourself under their jurisdiction. The gambling analogy is flawed, as it generally states in such laws that 'gambling is illegal within the state boundaries'. Now, it would be possible for a state to pass a law that said that it was illegal for its citizens to gamble, and that would then apply, regardless of whether the person was within the state or not.

Aha. It's the state residency situation. Well, I guess my question has been answered.