Don't understand this Amazon business practice

[PenguinPower]

Licensing agreements prohibit them from selling mp3s below a certain price. Same thing goes with ebooks.

The key difference is that CDs/books are physical products and Amazon can get wholesale rates, and then resell for whatever they want. No such thing as wholesale for digital goods.

Yes. Yes there is.

 

[tokie]

Yes. Yes there is.

Explain.

My understanding is that Amazon, Apple etc get a cut of the final price.

They do not "buy" an mp3 and then "resell" it for whatever price they want.

 

[AreaCode707]

Digital media licensing agreements. Content providers have a very specific idea of the money they feel they should make off of their products. Certain product types have certain margins. If they don't feel they've got a favorable enough margin on a given product, they'll do weird stuff like bundling.

Stuff like this always comes down to legal negotiation and contracts. So really the person to be asking is: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=502727

 

[CPA]

nm

 

[Howard]

This makes absolutely no sense. HD audio is easily accessible in MP3 format. I did a blind test with seven self-proclaimed audiophiles on my home system and none of them could reliably tell the difference. Before you get all hot and bothered about my equipment not being good enough to distinguish between the two: B&W 802 Diamonds, McIntosh MC402 amplifiers, active room correction, etc. etc.

Your equipment isn't good enough!


😛

 

[PenguinPower]

Explain.

My understanding is that Amazon, Apple etc get a cut of the final price.

They do not "buy" an mp3 and then "resell" it for whatever price they want.

It's not near the same as physical, but publishers/self-publishers have an initial price, a digital medium handler takes the product and digitizes, DRM, and places in the correct format for the retailer (and usually distributed to the consumer once purchased). The retailer sets the sale price and when a unit sells, the medium invoices the retailer and passes the initial cost to the publisher/self publisher.

Happy to discuss specifics through alternate channels and in private.

 

[railer]

Take a look at several of Anthrax's older albums. Was going to pick up some of them in MP3 format then realized that the CD is half the price or less, and then they throw in the MP3 album for free. That's great and all, but I didn't want my wife knowing I just bought a bunch of Anthrax albums. What the hell am I going to tell her when I get all of these CD's delivered?

word....

 

[KlokWyze]

Noobs abound in this thread.

I'll take those WAVs for cheaper any day of the week. BTW, if you're going to trust some other company's cloud offerings to always be around you are a fucking idiot.

 

[MagickMan]

I bet you its some BS brought forth by the record labels regarding digital music.

What I'd REALLY like is getting a free ebook copy of each physical book I buy. I'd buy waaaaaaaaaaay more books!

When I buy a physical book, I then go out and grab the epub from a torrent. Legal? Don't care if it is or not, the publishers can suck it.

and CDs > MP3s, any day.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Take a look at several of Anthrax's older albums. Was going to pick up some of them in MP3 format then realized that the CD is half the price or less, and then they throw in the MP3 album for free. That's great and all, but I didn't want my wife knowing I just bought a bunch of Anthrax albums. What the hell am I going to tell her when I get all of these CD's delivered?

Doesn't your wife listen to metal too? Or does she just hate Anthrax?

 

[lamedude]

Explain.

My understanding is that Amazon, Apple etc get a cut of the final price.

They do not "buy" an mp3 and then "resell" it for whatever price they want.

Look at Apple ebook case. Before Apple's involvement publishers would sell their ebooks wholesale to Amazon who would sometimes sell it below that price. I don't know if MP3s are wholesale or agency. Amazon does put MP3s on sale (my Google-fu tells me iTunes rarely does) so it could be wholesale but since MP3s don't drive Kindle sales they probably don't want to subsidize it like ebooks.
As for the OP my guess is Amazon wants to clear the warehouse of old CDs. MP3s don't have that problem.

 

[KentState]

It's probably something like selling a physical CD for 9.99, they can make $1 profit and the Autorip doesn't cost them a thing. The MP3 version has to sell for 11.99 for them to make a profit since their share is lower.

Regardless, I buy the physical copies to have the option to do as I please.

 

[CPA]

Doesn't your wife listen to metal too? Or does she just hate Anthrax?

Nope, she doesn't really listen to it. It's the spending of money part that she won't like.

 

[rockyct]

Take a look at several of Anthrax's older albums. Was going to pick up some of them in MP3 format then realized that the CD is half the price or less, and then they throw in the MP3 album for free. That's great and all, but I didn't want my wife knowing I just bought a bunch of Anthrax albums. What the hell am I going to tell her when I get all of these CD's delivered?

You do know there are now Amazon Lockers which are basically PO boxes for Amazon packages. They are great if you live in an apartment or area where you don't like packages left out, but they would help you in your situation. You have your order shipped to a nearby "locker" and they'll give you a code once it's been delivered.