This Week In The iTunes Music Store [31 March 2007 Edition]

[Sadly, this post is a couple of days late -- Ed.]

Scenario: you hear a song you like on the radio [TV, movie, etc.] from an artist you're not sure about, so you purchase the single track ["single"] from the iTunes Music Store. Maybe later you hear the next "single" from that album and decide to purchase that track as well. Soon, you read on a blog [hear from a friend, etc.] that the whole album is pretty decent, and you decide you'd like to give it a try. You go back to the iTMS, click on "Buy Album", and iTunes pops up a message telling you that you've already purchased one or more singles from the album, and that if you continue with the purchase, you will be charged for those tracks again, and those tracks will be downloaded again. I have been frustrated more than once by this odd behavior from a music store whose raison d'etre is to allow the music consumer to purchase music a la carte.

Well, last Thursday [29 March], the iTunes Music Store rolled out what may be the coolest feature they have ever added. "Complete My Album" ["CMA"] eliminates the problem noted above and allows the consumer to, well, "complete my album" by purchasing only the remaining un-bought tracks. Even cooler, there is no price premium for doing this -- the cost to complete the album is the cost of the album less the cost of the individual tracks already purchased.

Don't worry about this as a privacy issue -- the iTMS must keep track of your purchases [you did know that the iTMS keeps track of all of the music, TV shows, etc., purchased using your user account, didn't you??? -- Ed.] to enable portability of the iTMS library across multiple "authorized" computers. It's a very cool feature that I can assure has saved me frustration and made me a happier iTMS customer in only a couple of days.

CMA is pretty cool, but it's still pretty new, and there seem to be some bugs still to be worked out. One very odd bug involves "pre-ordered" albums. Many "albums" on the iTMS are available for "pre-order", ordering before the official release date of the album. Typically, Apple insists that "pre-order" albums include the immediate availability of the first "single", as well as bonus material, such as extra non-album singles, music videos, etc. -- some of which even disappear from the album when it is officially released. When the customer "pre-orders" the album, the customer is charged for the "single" at the time of purchase [and the single is downloaded immediately]. When the album is officially available, the iTMS sends an email to the customer with a link to download the "rest" of the album, which is charged at the time of download.

I have pre-ordered several albums, because I know I want to buy the album, and I appreciate the bonus materials. And, of course, I have later downloaded the "rest" of those albums. But oddly, CMA still offers me the chance to "complete my album" by purchasing the non-pre-order components.

Other weird behavior I have seen is that CMA duplicates some of my CMA-eligible album choices. Some of my albums appear in my CMA 2 or 3 separate times -- each time indicating the same previously-purchased track.

One last thing that bothers me a bit but is a "feature" and not a "bug" is a time limitation on CMA. Consumers can CMA for up to 180 days after purchasing the first "single", although for 90 days from launch CMA is retroactive for everything the consumer has already bought from the iTMS [got that??? -- Ed.] Ostensibly, the purpose of CMA is to goose sales of full albums on the ITMS, as CD sales in the physical world continue to dive, and consumers have shown some reluctance to purchase albums on the iTMS after paying for a single or two. If this is the case, I don't see how limiting the window to 6 months will capture every last album sale [and I don't see the downside of making it a "permanent" "option"]. But that probably is plenty of time for most people, who will probably know long before that whether they want to shell out for the rest of the album.

So, kudos to Apple and the record companies for making it easier for us to spend a little more money on music we have "discovered".

Apple iTunes offers "Complete My Album" [AP, via seattlepi.com]
iTunes Store Trying To Make Nice With Record Labels [Idolator]