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March 29, 2007

itunes_store

Breaking: iTunes now offering album credit

Posted Mar. 29, ’07, 5:12 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iTunes » iTunes Store

Album CreditThe other day, we reported that Apple was in negotiations to offer credit for music already bought on an album, and it seems that this feature is now in place. A reader tipped us to the fact early this morning, and we’ve now confirmed it.

When you go to an album on the iTunes Store from which you’ve purchased a track, the Buy link now says: “Complete My Album for $X.” Below it you’ll find the full price of the album. There’s also an option to see the tracks you’ve already purchased from that album, or to buy the full album, should you so desire (for example, maybe you’re on the road and don’t have the track you’ve already bought on that computer—a shame Apple won’t just let you redownload it at that point, but one thing at a time).

Of course, there’s a catch. The offer to complete the album is only valid for six months (technically, about 180 days, it seems) after the purchase of the original track, after which you’ll presumably have to pay full price once again.

As of yet, we don’t know if this is offered across the board, but I’ve checked two albums from which I’ve made recent purchases, and it also appears that this has been made retroactive, since I have the option to complete an album I bought in early February.

In my book, iTunes has just become a bit more attractive. We’ll keep you posted on this story as it develops.

Update [10:06AM ET]: There’s now a Complete My Album page on the iTunes Store, which lists the albums from which you have purchased tracks that are “eligible” for completion. Most of the albums on my list (the ones purchased prior to this year) have an expiration date of June 26, 2007, approximately six months from the beginning of the year. No word yet on if this is available in all countries of the iTunes store. Readers?

[Thanks, Dave!]


9 Comments

Sam Marsh said:

I have just purchased the rest of an album, 10 songs for £0.88p, as I originally had 9 songs of that album. I purchashed the 9 songs with some free codes I had, so for the whole album of 19 songs I have paid £0.88p or $1.72.

Auldsteamie

March 29, 2007 5:51 AM
definetheline said:

This looks awesome, and 6 months is quite awhile...

All the iTS needs now is to get rid of DRM....

March 29, 2007 6:08 AM
definetheline said:

Any word on whether this is working internationally...

March 29, 2007 6:23 AM
jayH said:

i wonder what happens to people who buys a single (let's say gwen stefani's wind it up, and don't make fun of my musical tastes :P ) before the album was released and then decides to buy the full album after the second single off of that album was also so good... i have two wind it ups in my library, plus the 'orginal neptunes mix' and wind it up live that comes with the iTunes album :dizzy:

March 29, 2007 6:27 AM
Dave said:

I was just looking through my purchases and found Complete My Album for tracks I bought in September. Of course the Macworld story has now been updated to steal my thunder. You have until June 27 to complete any album from which you have ever purchased tracks.

March 29, 2007 6:50 AM
Kelmon said:

Just to confirm that this function is available for my UK iTS account and for my colleague's Belgian account. Given this I suspect that it is safe to assume that this function is available globally if even Belgium gets it.

March 29, 2007 8:10 AM
definetheline said:

TUAW confirms it is working internationally...(Canada, Belgium, UK, etc.)

March 29, 2007 8:27 AM
Walt Basil said:

About buying singles, I believe you'll be out of luck. iTunes looks at them as separate albums. When you buy the resulting full album, you see both songs, one listed as the full album while the other one lists it as the single album. I have no insight into this, just my gut feeling.

I wish I could get something out of this. Unfortunately any songs I buy are the ones I want, and the ones I don’t buy I never want to listen to, except for maybe a couple years later, which will be “time expired” for me.

From my past experience, when I would hear a song on the radio that I liked, I would buy the album because I had to. The songs on that album would break down like this:
1 or 2 songs (translated to 4 & 5 star rating) that I would buy the album for; 3-5 songs (translated to 3 star rating) that I wouldn’t buy, but I also wouldn’t change the station if it came on the air; and 3-4 songs (no stars, no play count) that I absolutely can’t stand, and I would change the station if it were to air, just to see what else was playing.

As I transferred over to the digital world, I imported my hundreds of CDs into my desktop machine for archival purposes, and only those songs that made the 4-5 star rated cut make it over to my every day use PowerBook (which syncs with my iPods). After all, why have a whole album on my iTunes if I’m only going to hit the skip button when a song comes on that I don’t particularly care for? In this new digital age, the way I view albums has not changed. There are only one to three songs that I ever truly like on any given album. These are the songs I purchase now. No more buying albums. Because of my method, I am able to get the 23 songs that I found that I liked this month and pay only $24.65 (including my tax). In the olden times, that would have cost me over $275 of music to buy in a month, which probably wouldn’t have happened.

As a result of my method, all the songs on my PowerBook, and consequently my iPods, are all songs I truly love. All rated 4 & 5 stars. That also trims the amount of space used on my PowerBook and iPods. On my desktop machine, I have over 60 GB of music. On my PowerBook, I’m hovering around 5 GB. Enough music to listen to for several days straight without repeats, and all songs I totally dig.

So for me, this new deal doesn’t offer much. There has been up to this point, only one album that I liked more than 5 songs – The Queen of the Damned soundtrack.

March 29, 2007 8:36 AM
Philippe Azimzadeh said:

Any idea if songs downloaded from the FREE ON iTunes section will count the same as regular songs in this?

That would be cool, albeit a rip-off for Apple...

March 29, 2007 3:38 PM

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