iTunes Gets Greedy
It’s true. Apple’s iTunes online music service has raised it’s prices from the 99 cents it’s traditionally charged for a song to some screwy system where “popular” songs are $1.29, some songs are 99 cents, and the really old stuff is 69 cents.
I have to admit, this makes me unhappy. I hate to see prices rise, and I’m already grumpy at iTunes. As you may be aware, I’ve had computer problems lately. My hard drive died, so my backup data was loaded onto another hard drive, which died, so THAT backup data was loaded onto a third hard drive… Sadly, iTunes will only let you “own” limited copies of the songs you “bought” — the result being that the last time I tried to listen to iTunes I was warned that I can only make one more backup of my music library before it self-destructs and I have to buy all my iTunes downloads over again.
Grrrrr…
There’s a painful workaround to this (I think) — if I’m guessing right, I could burn all my iTunes downloads to CD as .aiff files, then reimport them back into iTunes again as .mp3’s. This will degrade the sound a bit, and will take a considerable amount of time — especially as the computer shop that fixed my hard drive broke my CD/DVD burner and can’t fix it, so I can’t make any disks at all at the moment…
Anyway, I’m a little grouchy about iTunes raising their rates, even when all the songs I personally like are probably in the “69 cent discount bin.”
FOR SALE:
One “Bill Richardson for President” bumper sticker, like new. Much like his innovate veterans’ health care program, it’s never been used.
I’m So Excited!
I’ve noticed recently that I use exclamation points a lot in my e-mails! It’s an odd thing, because I’m really a pretty low-key, laid back person, so I’m not sure where all this fervent punctuation is coming from! But it’s a little annoying! Kind of like when I went through my “dash” stage — dividing every sentence into two parts; if not three! Really — I was taught better than this! I mean — really!
Oh dang. I won.
I got a letter from the Publisher’s Clearing House last week. For months now they’ve been sending me letters, about one every three weeks or so, full of instructions on how to enter. Several times I’ve found myself poring through the material, trying to find the gold stamp and the silver certificate and the Seal of Authenticity, gluing them all in their proper places on the response form, hands aquiver, thoughts cheerfully spending my millions of dollars, dreamily pondering what life would be like if I knew how to pay the mortgage every month…
So my excitement was worth of an exclamation point when I found a letter with the words “You Won” printed in 80 point Helvetica Black on the envelope sitting in my mailbox! I ripped the envelope open, dreaming of things such as food and clothing and other such riches.
“You’ve won!” the letter read. “You’ve received this certificate worth $400 off the price of a digital camcorder!” Hooray! I’ve always wanted a digital camcorder — it would help my wedding photography tremendously! Exclamation points galore! I flipped the page over, only to learn that the camcorder in question cost over $600. There’s no way I could come up with the $200+ needed to complete the deal.
So, yay. I won.
I think I’d rather have lost.
Offer o’ the Day
If you’ve read this far, well, here’s your reward:
I’ve decided to give stuff away today to the first person to order something from HippieBoy Design. That’s, like, a $40 value!
That’s an hour’s free print design (business cards, business forms, letterhead, brochures, posters, whatever your little heart desires), if you order a web site I’ll give you one extra page free, if you want a photo shoot, you get the first hour free…
Offer good from now to 5 p.m. Central, today only (Wednesday, April 8).
Same thing happened to me last year. I was unable to play about four hundred bucks worth of iTunes stuff I’d PAID for. I therefore, felt obliged to go pirate them as I’d already bought them and too livid to pay for them again. If you buy a CD you can do what you want so why not with an MP3 you paid for? Now on the odd occasion I buy something from them I do as you said, burn it to disc and load back as an mp3 and so far that seems to get around the problem fine and also let’s me trade them with friends. I can’t even detect any sound deterioration. It’s worth it because I refuse to lose stuff I paid for again just because I change computers or choose to back up or whatever. GRRRR.
Damn it, why can’t you (or I!) win some substantial money? Just enough to get in the clear and relax. I don’t need millions.
Speaking of your CD/DVD burner the computer shop broke for you, I’ve been wondering how much THEY paid YOU for that. *Any* reputable business that did something like that would not only gladly reimburse the value of the item they broke, but they’d make THEY offered to do so up front without you having to even ask.
Knowing the history of this shop you’ve been dealing with, I’m almost afraid to even hear the answer.
I gave up on the iTunes store shortly after I got my iPod. Buy your music from Amazon. MP3s are still 99 cents and DRM free, so no limits.
Here’s an idea, borrow $200, get that camera, sell it on eBay for the full $600, get yourself the same camera from Amazon for $400. Keep the extra $200 until whoever you borrowed it from threatens to kill you and buy beer.
VA — I don’t mind paying a buck for a song. More than that makes me hesitate for some reason — I guess I’m getting old and crotchety. But it really bugs me that I’m in danger of losing, oh, probably five or six hundred bucks worth of songs if I have any more computer problems. I’ve been buying one or two songs a week ever since iTunes started; it would be interesting to know just how much money I really have spent there over the years.
Jody — They’re trying to find an external DVD burner that will work on my computer. It seems like something they could just go buy at Staples or Best Buy (whichever is still open), but I guess not. I don’t know if I’ll have to pay for the new device or if they’ll cover it. The technician is telling me that the same hardware problem that burned out the hard drives most likely caused the DVD burner to fail, which makes it nobody’s problem but mine, I guess. Odd that it happened in their shop, though. I’m refusing to stress over the bill until I see it… The owner of the store keeps telling me not to worry, that they’ll work with me on this, and I’m gonna believe him.
Dad A — Oddly enough, I checked on Amazon. The camcorder retails for $159… So selling it on eBay for $600 would be a bit problematic.
But a danged good thought!
You’d be surprised what people will buy on eBay. I sold a broken laptop, was completely honest about the condition and everything, complete with pictures of the duct tape holding it together.
Yay! The winner of the free stuff is Riverbend Video Production! They chimed in at 3:18 and bought a nifty web site. Yay! Yay, I say, Yay!
I love it ! Very creative ! That‘s actually really cool Thanks.
Wow, that is… um… random… and… well, annoying, actually, but thanks for playing. You can ignore your concession prize on the way out.
Yeah, Japanese spam on my blog. I’m gonna have to track all those down and delete ’em.