iTunes Europe - 1.29 Euros?

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

http://www.macplus.org/magplus/article.php?id_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".

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.)

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

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

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.

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 :rolleyes:

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.

£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.

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.