This is something I've been wondering about for a while and wanted to get your opinion on. First let me set it up, for arguments sake I'll use Itunes. At presnt it is £0.79 for a song (£0.99 for popular ones now).

It's 0.79 for every song so if I buy Tapp by 3OH!3 and and Live Your Life by T.I. I pay the same for both, right? However and here is the thing that is bugging me, you pay 0.79 for 1.02mins of entertainment whereaswith Live Your Live you pay £0.79 for 5.39. This means that actually Tapp is a rip off as you get much more song for the same amount of money with Live Your Life. And becuase it's shorter, it will have taken the artist less time and will have had to put less reasources into making it, therefore accroding to the rules of a consumer society you should pay less; or more in the case of a longer song.

I understand that it may seem like a small amount of money but it adds up remember that a £200 iPod costs £20,000 to fill. So this raises the question should songs be priced by their length? I think to a certain expetent yes, sensibly. If a song is a 1min long it should cost less, because you get less from it. The more you get from something the higher you pay, effects everth product in our world except digital music for some reason.

Anyway what do you think?

i think ur stupid for buying songs off itunes :S

Just buy the longer song. Case closed.

A 1-minute song doesn't cost much less than a 5-minute one to produce, so I don't think the prices should differ. Also, other digital stores do vary their prices depending on length and perhaps the popularity of the artist, but iTunes has been known for keeping all of the prices around the same level (see this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_downloads#Challenges_to_legal_music_downlo ads)), which I personally believe to be a good move. The decision to make song prices variable would cause a lot of chaos and soon we'd be able to buy indie artists' albums for a quid, but the new Kanye West single for no less than a hundred.

^ Wut?

iTunes has become such a rip-off now, £1 for one song? **** off.

I gave up on iTunes a while ago. My uncle showed me a way to torrent music for free and then load it onto my iTunes account for my iPod which obviously helps loads.

I just buy apps from there now.

i'm assuming nobody that's posted buys CDs anymore as most new CDs cost anywhere from $15 to $20. so iTunes is, at worst, the same price.

to answer the question of the OP, i think charging the same amount for every song (or thereabouts) is the best way to go about it. if not, where do you set the initial $1 amount? 3 minutes? 4 minutes? certain bands have songs that are 20 minutes long. should i pay $15 to $20 for that one song? why don't you listen to bands that have enough talent to make more than 1 minute songs?

:lol:

i'm assuming nobody that's posted buys CDs anymore as most new CDs cost anywhere from $15 to $20. so iTunes is, at worst, the same price.

to answer the question of the OP, i think charging the same amount for every song (or thereabouts) is the best way to go about it. if not, where do you set the initial $1 amount? 3 minutes? 4 minutes? certain bands have songs that are 20 minutes long. should i pay $15 to $20 for that one song? why don't you listen to bands that have enough talent to make more than 1 minute songs?

:lol:

I still buy CDs, don't use iTunes though. I do torrent a song here and there, but if I want an album I will just buy the CD.

Honestly, if you don't like the iTunes prices, just don't use iTunes. If you want to be cheap, there are tons of easy, easy ways for you to get free music.

i'm assuming nobody that's posted buys CDs anymore as most new CDs cost anywhere from $15 to $20. so iTunes is, at worst, the same price.

to answer the question of the OP, i think charging the same amount for every song (or thereabouts) is the best way to go about it. if not, where do you set the initial $1 amount? 3 minutes? 4 minutes? certain bands have songs that are 20 minutes long. should i pay $15 to $20 for that one song? why don't you listen to bands that have enough talent to make more than 1 minute songs?

:lol:

ill buy cds if i like a few songs on the album but im not wasting £10-£15 for one song when i can torrent it free
the whole buy one song on itunes just makes me laf when u can torrent it i dont see why people do it

I buy CDs to occaionally, Itunes is more convienient.

the whole buy one song on itunes just makes me laf when u can torrent it i dont see why people do itTotally. We should also start stealing cars, I don't see why people buy them.

Yeah, why pay for anything? Just take what you want. No one gets hurt right? Without getting paid for their work, people will still be making music for free right?

Are you telling me that if you like a song or an artist, you don't think they deserve even a dollar (or pound) for a song?

A bit disturbing.

Yeah, why pay for anything? Just take what you want. No one gets hurt right? Without getting paid for their work, people will still be making music for free right?

Are you telling me that if you like a song or an artist, you don't think they deserve even a dollar (or pound) for a song?

A bit disturbing.

Define disturbing.. :undecided:

Limewire for the win. There really isn't much left to say.

Subscription services!! It's the most reasonable thing to do. This is why the Zune Marketplace beats Itunes!

I recommend that you like at less-known bands and artists on iTunes. They tend to make longer songs that cost you the same price. I was looking at 6-10 minute songs yesterday, and they were all $1.69, as opposed to $2.19 (Or however much it is) for well-known bands.

I really don't care about song length as long as the whole album is good. So what if 17 by SP is a 17 second closer. I still love the album and get my money's worth from it.

Some of my favorite bands aren't even charging anymore. Before Reznor retired NIN, he released The Slip for free. Corgan is releasing the new SP album free song by song. The album, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, is a huge 44 song concept album.

On the Green Day forums once, Billie Joe came on and told us that they were rich enough, and that we could pirate their music. He said "Warner Bros. won't forgive you, but we will =D"

Subscription services!! It's the most reasonable thing to do. This is why the Zune Marketplace beats Itunes!

No, subscription services are the single worst idea ever. You have to pay to keep listening to your music. So, infinity $$$, versus $1 per song on iTunes, and guess what? That's a flat $1. Not $1 a month.

I rather spend .99 to $1.29 on a song(s) or buy a cd to at least support the bands i like so they can keep making music and tour instead of being a pirate who really has no interest in supporting the bands they like. thats is my opinion on said issue

May a point out the obvious.

Quality of song =/= length of the song.

There are many short, but fantastic songs ('Situations' + 'Belle' - Jack Johnson, 'Hypnotize' - The White Stripes, 'If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out (Take My Wife)' - Tim Minchin, etc. are all under 2 minutes long), and many very long, but not amazing songs at all ('Seize the Night' - Meat Loaf, 'Thin Blue Flame - Josh Ritter, 'The Prophet's Song' - Queen, etc. are all at least 8 minutes song).

People have different ideas on the 'quality' of a song, but no-one can argue that length is a defining factor. If all short games were crap, and long games were amazing, we probably wouldn't have marvels like Heavenly Sword and Uncharted, due to their relatively short length, or any bad RPG would be considered amazing because of their replayability and length.

My two cents.

(Don't think I wrote that very well...)