There’s an old saying:
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!
I suggest a corollary:
Charge me once, shame on you. Charge me twice, shame on me!
Well, Apple and iTunes have done it!
Apple recently announced at MacWorld that the iTunes store is going to start selling only DRM free music. And – of course – for those who had already bought music – there is an upgrade option!
So I logged into my iTunes account today and this is what I found:
Yes. This looks like a great deal – for only $15.30 I can upgrade 87 of my songs to DRM free! No more entering usernames and passwords, and no more Apple big brother tracking my music. (well, except for the signatures they embed in the file still…)
But hey… wait a second… I ALREADY bought this content! Why do I have to buy it again? I’m not getting hardly anything different – but somehow they’ve found a way to justify charging me again for the same stuff.
I have written about this before – I think the world and internet should move toward a pay for content approach: any content, any device, any network. Who’s with me? Why should I buy the same content over and over again? (This is for you Disney film lovers who keep buying the xxth Anniversary Edition of each film when it comes out, and who’ll do it again when they release them on BluRay.)
I believe the phrase you were looking for was “Sell DRM music, shame on you. Pay for DRM’d music, shame on me!” $.30 a song is quite a bit cheaper than the dvd to blu-ray upgrade. That’s 30% more for a decent quality mp4 (256 kbps) vs a ~125% more for blu-ray for a similar bump in quality.
I think that we should pay for a single license for a piece of media and then pay
DEATH TO DRM!
I don’t know why anyone would have bought DRM music in the first place. I am glad I did not jump on that pearl white bandwagon that rolls on clickwheels.
I AGREE! This is stupid. I bought them on DVD now they want me to buy them all on Blue Ray. And its expensive! I am pretty tired of it. So I haven’t bought hardly any movies lately it’s too frustrating.