Tue 06 Jan ∞ Permalink

How iTunes Upgrades Rip You Off

I’ll preface this by saying that I no longer use iTunes, but rather Amazon for my music purchases. Still, I wanted to upgrade some old iTunes-bought music. Here’s how they’re ripping me off with their new 30-cents-to-upgrade policy:

  1. I already paid for the song. Now they want me to pay 1/3 of my purchase price to have it again.
  2. They’re forcing it into AAC format instead of MP3. As a PC owner, I prefer MP3 because it’s more universal. So even newly-upgraded music will be downgraded if I choose to convert it into MP3 format.
  3. And the worst offender: It will NOT let you select which songs to upgrade. You MUST upgrade them all. So, for instance, I have several albums I bought years ago on iTunes which I have since then received the CDs for. It still REQUIRES me to upgrade these full albums at $3 each DESPITE the fact that I own the CDs and don’t want them from iTunes anymore.

    Crappy DRM, crappy solution. I love iPods and appreciate Macs, but Apple needs a serious kick-in-the-butt for their bullying policies.