iTMS Case Study

This morning, I booted up iTunes to see if I could purchase a song from Rare Earth, an R&B band that James Lavelle sampled for the U.N.K.L.E. project. U.N.K.L.E. opens every show with this song, and I wanted to hear the original in its entirety. The song is available on iTMS, but of course you have to purchase the whole album to get the song, because the RIAA knows that kids like me wouldn’t buy any of the other songs.

Shame, shame, shame. This model is already broken, which explains why P2P is growing in popularity once again.

Apple markets the iTMS as being able to buy the music you want on demand. Well, I think this is a load of garbage. Take a look at the Rare Earth album. Supposedly you can buy tracks for 99 cents, right? Well, the Rare Earth album only has seven tracks and yet the album costs $9.99. Well, it must be because two of the tracks are long, right? Well, Apple has never made a distinction about that. Apparently, only “radio friendly” singles are 99 cents a pop. Sheesh.

The other offering that pissed me off lately was The Complete U2. I’m a U2 fan and I wanted to download some of the tracks from that package that I can’t get anywhere else. However, for all of the unreleased tracks, you have to buy the whole set. I already own numerous U2 albums on CD and I don’t feel like purchasing them again. The set is way too expensive, priced at $140.