Digital rip-off?

[Sam Slater]

Why is it that some albums are cheaper to buy on CD than an .mp3 download? I just find it stupid and a bit of a rip-off.

Just looking at Neil Young's 'After the Gold Rush' on amazon and the price for the remastered album is ?5.39 but ?7.49 for the .mp3 256kbps download.

With the CD it had to be made, processed, packed and wrapped. Distributed to some warehouse and stored. If I buy it someone will have to pick it up, process it again and pop it in a van who'll send it to some other local warehouse where it'll be processed again, put in another van and sent to my house. All these people have to be paid.

With the .mp3 album it just had to be ripped, backed up and is sat on a server somewhere with a 100 million other albums, ready to be downloaded.

I don't mind so much as I like ripping the CDs myself and always know I have a hard copy for backup, but I just can't fathom why something which costs less to store and distribute costs around 40% more.

CD version:

MP3 version:

It's the same for his 'Harvest' album.

Quite often they're the same price regardless of format and rarely you'll get an .mp3 album a little cheaper. Just want to know how they work the pricing out. It seems arbitrary.

[videokim]

This is why pirates do so well as physical product should always cost more than a digital one.

[Arginald Valleywater]

I cancelled Napster for said same reason. CDs are cheaper in most retailers...HMV have a permanent 2 for ?10 or less offer going on the high street.