Michal Ždanský After years of waiting the iTunes Store was brought to the Czech Republic with a wide range of music and movies, when Czech users can finally legally purchase digital audio and video content. But how favorable is the pricing policy?
When I first saw the prices in the iTunes Store, it was exactly what I expected - the popular 1:1 conversion of dollars to euros. This practice has worked in consumer electronics for many years, and to some extent it is understandable. Exporting costs money and there are many other fees associated with it – including customs. But I see it differently with digital content.
If we look in the App Store, we find prices like €0,79 or €2,39, which, when converted according to the current exchange rate, roughly correspond to the price in dollars ($0,99, $2,99). Digital distribution, unlike physical goods, avoids many fees, and the only one that can possibly be applied is VAT (if I'm wrong, economists, please correct me). I was so looking forward to the fact that the price list from the App Store would also be reflected in the sister iTunes Store and we would be buying songs for "two bucks". But that didn't happen and the classic transfer of $1 = €1 took place.
This raised the price of all digital content to about a fifth of what I would have paid in America. It's not about the five crowns on the song. But if you are big fans of music and want to have it digitally, legally and morally acquired, it is no longer five crowns, but we can range in the order of thousands of crowns. However, we are only talking about music.
Movies are a completely different matter. Let's look, for example, at the Czech dubbed ones Cars 2. In the iTunes Store, we can find 4 different prices for which we can watch the movie. Either in the HD version (€16,99 purchase, €4,99 rental) or in the SD version (€13,99 purchase, €3,99 rental). If we count in crowns, I will either buy the film for 430 or 350 crowns, or rent it for 125 or 100 crowns - depending on the desired resolution.
And now let's look into the physical world of selling DVD carriers and video rental stores. According to Google, I can buy Cars 2 on DVD for 350-400 crowns. For that price, I get a medium in a nice box, a movie in SD quality with the option of choosing the dubbing language and subtitles. I can also rip the DVD to my computer for my own use. I will still have the movie available if my disc is destroyed. I also have a multilingual version where younger children can watch the movie with dubbing and older ones (perhaps) prefer to watch the movie in English with subtitles.
If I want to achieve the same thing in iTunes, I will be financially the same in the case of the SD version, in the case of Blu-Ray, which will provide me with HD quality (1080p or 720p) even slightly better, since the Blu-Ray disc costs about 550 CZK, which regarding Cars 2. Here I will save over 100 crowns if I insist on 720p resolution.
But the problem arises if I want to have a film in two languages. iTunes does not offer one title with multiple language tracks, either you buy the Czech one Cars 2 or English Cars 2. Do I want two languages? I will pay twice! If I want subtitles, I'm out of luck. Only some movies in iTunes offer English subtitles. If I wanted to Czech subtitles for an English-language movie downloaded on iTunes, I'm stuck downloading amateur subtitles from sites like subtitles.com or opensubtitles.org, which are not made up of professional translators, but film enthusiasts with often average knowledge of English, and the subtitles often look accordingly. In order to play the film with Czech subtitles, I have to open it in another player that can handle external subtitles (films from iTunes are in M4V format).
And if I want to rent a movie? Video rental companies are currently going bankrupt in a big way due to the fact that most people download movies from the Internet, but they can still be found. I pay 40-60 crowns for renting a DVD or Blu-Ray for one or two days. I'll pay at least double that in iTunes. Again only for one language version and again without subtitles.
And there is another problem. Where to play the movie? Let's say that I want to watch the film in the comfort of the living room, sitting casually on the sofa, which is opposite the 55" HD TV. I can play the DVD on a DVD player or, for example, on a game console (in my case PS3). However, I can also play the movie on a computer with a DVD drive, which satisfies both my desktop PC and MacBook Pro.
If I have a movie from iTunes, I have a problem. Of course, the most convenient way is to own an Apple TV, which can be an alternative to a DVD player. However, until recently this Apple product was taboo in the Czech Banana Republic, and most households tend to own some form of DVD player. In Czech conditions, the use of Apple TV is rather exceptional.
So if I want to watch a movie downloaded from iTunes on my TV and I don't have an Apple TV, I have several options - connect the computer to the TV, burn the movie to DVD, which will cost me another half hour of time and one blank DVD-ROM, or burn the movie to a flash drive and play it on a DVD player if it has USB and hardware debugged enough to play an HD movie. At the same time, the second and third options can only be implemented if you have bought the film. You can only play rented movies in iTunes. Not exactly the pinnacle of convenience and the epitome of Apple-esque simplicity, is it?
The argument on the other hand is that I can easily download movies purchased in iTunes and play them on my iPhone or iPad. But watching movies on the iPhone is, don't get mad at me, masochistic. Why should I watch an expensive movie on a 9,7" iPad screen when I have a 13" laptop and a 55" TV?
When Apple entered the music market with iTunes, it wanted to help desperate publishers who were losing incredibly due to piracy and their own gluttony. He taught people to pay for musical works, even a fraction of what publishers would imagine. I'm not sure if in Cupertino they intended to save Hollywood as well. When I see the prices at which I should buy or rent a movie, it makes me think of a skull and crossbones and Anonymous.
If the availability of overpriced digital movies in iTunes is to lead to a moral dilemma, whether to watch a movie legally and morally, or just "legally" and download the film from Uloz.to., so I think it can't work. Despite everything trying to bring data sharing servers to their knees, downloading a movie for free is still the most difficult solution for the majority of Czech users, even without taking into account the Czech nature suffering from the reverberations of a forty-year-old totalitarian regime.
A song for a folk "dvacka" doesn't make me wonder if buying it is the best idea, and whether I'd rather spend it on a treat at McDonalds (which my taste buds won't do anyway). But if I have to pay more for a movie than greedy distributors or bankrupt video stores want me to, I really don't have an iota of determination in my body to prefer the iTunes Store to Uloz.to and similar servers.
If distributors want to fight piracy, they need to offer people a better alternative. And that alternative is favorable prices. But it will probably be difficult. A newly released DVD is more than 5 times more expensive than a cinema ticket, and we watch the film at best 2 times anyway. And even the current iTunes Store price list in European conditions will not help in the positive fight against piracy. I'm not even talking about the warning that almost automatically marks us as a thief with every DVD.
I wouldn't steal the car. But if I could download it on the internet, I would do it now.
The author does not suggest piracy with this article, he only dwells on the current situation of the distribution of film content and points out some facts.
I completely agree with the text - I'm just adding another argument that the iTunesStore does not record movies. A poor selection of films + the absence of luxury editions (a number of bonuses, including comments from the creators), which is a radical ailment for me as a film scientist.
Nice and true article! :-)
The video rental shop is cheaper, but I would have to return the films on time. Itunes crashes like this almost immediately.
I agree 100% in everything else, despite the fact that we only play two songs in iTunes in Czech.
Except that by buying a DVD, you don't get the movie in HD 720p quality, but only SD 480p. But otherwise I agree with the rest of the article.
True true, fixed.
Everything that is written here is true except that the people from Titulky.com and others deserve a little more "respect" for what they do. :-) If they want us to buy movies legally, I would agree with those servers like Uloz.to and e.g. CzTorrent, because in my opinion that is the best server for HD movies and the quality is really amazing. But we can only wait to see what happens in the end :-)
...can be purchased on DVD for 350-400 crowns. For that price I get a medium in a nice box, a movie in HD quality (720p)
there are really no 720p movies on DVD;-) - otherwise, nice article!
I wonder if Apple even knows about it? I think that a movie from iTunes is expensive even for Germans with much more purchasing power. When, as written in the article, it is cheaper to have a physical DVD. Otherwise, I've been doing the same with music since I opened iTunes. So about 100% agree with the article. It's a shame that those who could do something about it won't read the article.
Renting a movie from iTunes only makes sense if a person buys an Apple TV (2800 kc), otherwise it's just a nuisance that can't be accepted for that money (rental shop).
The purchase prices are too high, not by much, but they are beyond the acceptable range.
So it would only be enough to lower the prices "a little" and it would be great. I won't buy/rent anything like this :)
After all, it's absolutely simple, I don't understand that the multinational giants haven't figured it out yet.
The better price you offer, the more people will pay.
Exponentially. People love to support their artists, but sensibly! Easy to use, it already is = iTunes.
But a real offer!
Prices:
Be flat and unlimited.
Or: Album: 99,- , film acquisition: 60 CZK, film rental: 30 CZK.
In my opinion, these are defensible in the Czech Republic for paid downloads.
I still don't get CDs, DVDs, booklets, etc.!
if there were these prices, then it's about something else, but I doubt that these prices will come in both the near and distant future
As already said, DVDs are not really 720p. DVD = SD version in iTunes. You won't lose the movie either, thanks to iTunes in the cloud, you can re-download the purchased movie at any time, or stream to Apple TV (no need to wait hours). I see usability as the biggest problem (paradoxically for Apple) – non-existence of multilingual versions, missing subtitles, inability to search by language). We'll see how and if the new Apple TV solves it...
I can only agree and I was also pondering this issue just last night. I was looking at the two Czech films in iTunes and I was very tempted to watch the film Na vlasku. But that price is cruel. I think that Apple has set an excellent policy of paying for applications and games, where for "two bucks" I can sometimes get a really high-quality game or application. When a million people do it, the earnings won't take long. However, they set a completely different policy for films, and I would be quite interested in how many people in the Czech Republic bought or rented those two films. So it would take two things - to significantly lower the price of the mine and significantly expand the supply. Then I would also want subtitles and bonuses - although I would of course welcome them. Thanks for the great article ;-)
@zazi, if 100-125 CZK is a cruel price for you, I can imagine that you wouldn't even pay a possible 80. Otherwise, the Czech market is still marginal for Apple, but overall it can be seen that it is internationalizing (listing a bunch of Mac localizations OS X, the introduction of the iTunes store in many new countries) so hopefully we will see a better system in time. Prices could and should be lower, but it's more about the overall willingness to pay for content...
:-) well, I probably irritated you with the word "cruel" ... but it's not about 100-125 crowns (for a loan). Personally, I would rather buy the film than rent it (I have children, so it's convenient to have a longer time) and in that case it seems too much to me... But I don't want to argue - that's not the point here.
Dude, it's new. For older films, the prices there are 6-8 euros, which is not so terrible.
Except for the resolution of the DVD, which is unimportant, I totally agree. Those prices would be interesting if they were divided by two. They are completely off like this.
It would just like that feedback to get into the hands of someone called to somehow intervene at Apple.
Even before I saw the prices, I said to myself that if it's a very good movie, I'll pay up to €8, but for €13,99, etc., I'd rather go to the cinema...even if the cinema is late here (Břeclav )
Maybe I would be more willing to pay for my favorite movie (despite the fact that the prices are really inflated), but what I really miss in iTunes when it comes to movies is the option of original language and Czech subtitles for movies otherwise I don't even watch them anymore.
And in addition, I usually download movies in FullHD resolution, which iTunes does not yet offer at all, while for FullHD there is usually a version with sound and subtitles in Czech and English, in addition, it is possible to have several versions of the Czech dubbing, where the official version did not succeed ( e.g. Shrek :o)
I will probably write a rather unique opinion: I bought the film On the Hair for Children. It was cheaper for me than going to the cinema with them (when I pay for two children and one adult). They watch the film repeatedly and the HD quality is great on a 50″ TV. And yes, we have an Apple TV.
Nevertheless, I agree with most of the things in the article: it bothers me that the Czech films (two) are as standalones and not as soundtracks, there are no Czech subtitles...
And there is still the problem of DRM: in order to play the purchased movie, the computer with iTunes must be turned on. Apple TV will not play a movie from a network drive. And the XBMC I have on the Apple TV can't handle DRM.
The purchased film should also be streamed directly from iTunes in the cloud... Or is it not yet available in the Czech Republic?
It should not be forgotten that Steve Jobs was one of the directors and the largest individual owner of shares of the Walt Disney Company film studios. So it is clear that he was promoting the interests of the film producers and not the viewers. We'll see how Apple deals with this legacy in the future.
Excellent and clear article. But I don't think it's entirely Apple's fault. in light of the megavideo and ACTA scandals, I feel that while the music industry has already capitulated (iTunes match), Hollywood has not. there are several factors behind this: today it is extremely easy to produce and distribute high-quality music "on your knees". yes, there are already signs that it will also work with films, but the music industry is much further ahead in amateur digitization. so publishers cannot hold artists hostage. I can imagine that if they didn't come to an agreement with Apple, Apple would go the more extreme route of the app store type, where the artists themselves would be encouraged to provide their content, without any recording contract. it is not possible in the current business scheme, but let's say apple would provide a "music developer account". in exchange for exclusive music provision you get logic for free and maybe some discount on mac. apple would make an abnormal amount of money because it would not have to pay the publisher, the artist would have to invest at the beginning and it would still not be physical, but only digital distribution, but if the reward was 30% for every song downloaded - that would be something ( unlike today's approx. 10% for album sales). as far as hollywood is concerned / the production and distribution of a professional film still costs a lot of money and no artist can afford it. film studios can therefore negotiate with apple with more self-confidence and without fear that apple can theoretically bypass them with some scheme. this will then be reflected in the prices of the films. but that's also why films are extremely expensive, because their production is extremely expensive and the trend is rather gradual. I'm talking about Hollywood. As a consumer, I find it extremely unfair and I refuse to pay 5 euros or more for a consumer refund, when I can buy a legal DVD of Bergman for prices close to 2 euros. as a consumer, I am extremely satisfied, but as an iTunes user, I am extremely disappointed that only Hollywood is playing there. I understand it in the cinema - there they are existentially dependent on sales and I know that art films do not break records. but distribution costs almost nothing on the iTunes store - why can't very cheap and high-quality films be there? to return to the hypothesis of the revolution of the music industry: thanks to digitization and HD cameras, today there are an extremely large number of talented young filmmakers who make very high-quality and cheap films. Hollywood knows this and pressures Apple not to allow the "App store effect" - where big developers were overwhelmed by successful individuals offering quality (ie gameplay - experience) for reasonable money, not super HD expensive FPS.
imagine such a scheme on iTunes - young filmmakers and musicians could distribute for cheap money to a really mass audience. This audience would find that they are fun and very high-quality films that they can watch not for 15 euros, but for 1 or less. that would be a revolution
You're all raging about Apple, but the problem is somewhere else - NOT seen by publishers. She is the one who sets the price policy, she is the one who pushes the marketing model: we prefer to sell the minimum, but at a high price, rather than the maximum, but for a buck. And then they invent such cancers as ACTA, etc. As long as the chief publishers do not discuss it, nothing will change in pricing policies... alas
"downloading a movie for free is still the most difficult solution for most Czech users" - nonsense. The average user does not know what a torrent is or how some uloz.to works. And he doesn't even want to know. Searching for torrents and downloading them is a chore that only students have time for. It's just cheaper for the normal working person to click, pay and download legally. I'm not saying iTunes prices are fine, I'm just explaining the principle.
I am reminded of Apple's words: TV is just a hobby for us. Good article, thanks for it. I hope that someone from Apple's PR monitors the CR as well and reads it with the help of google translate. Maybe...it will be better
I agree with the article except for a few of my own opinions. The fact that one has to buy an appleTV in order to watch a movie downloaded from the iTunes store is just as clear as the fact that one has to buy a BRplayer in order to watch a BRdisc. I think that AppleTV started to be sold in the guilds earlier than they started to distribute movies on the iTunes store. So I think the policy is fine. Everyone protects their media or data and tries to sell the playback source. And honestly, if those movies were 20 percent cheaper, or even 30 percent, wouldn't people still download them from available share servers? probably yes :-) But otherwise I agree with the article
And I gladly removed the DRM from both Czech films and put them in the Purchased folder on the disc :)
Of course, the publishers can only blame themselves for "Internet piracy", they want an amount in the order of hundreds of crowns for one film is absolutely unacceptable and I think it is not even a question of the standard of living of a particular person. I would not be willing to pay these amounts even with an income of 50000/month. Kort, when nowadays the film as a product has fallen hard into a consumer product, 99% of people watch the film only once. My experience is that almost every person I know has at least one movie at home bought through a newsstand, for those 40 ducks :), so for this price I think it's possible. What offends me the most about this problem is that the entire show business is drowning in billions, but it's still not enough for them and nobody finds it embarrassing, for these billionaires to force more money with ACTA laws, etc., that seems really pathetic to me, from the idea that I the cops search my computer and extort money from me that might go to Tom Cruise, I'm sick of it
I only rented the film Na vlasku and that was also out of curiosity - to try the convenience of having what I just selected in a moment via Apple TV. I get it from the US store (English only), so when I look at the price of buying the HD version - $19.99, I really don't want to buy it.
One Czech online store offers a combo version (BD + DVD) for the price of CZK 429 - that was my choice. The children took the DVD to their grandmother, and they watch the BD at home in a higher quality than the one from the Apple TV. In addition, there is also multilingual audio and subtitles, a number of bonuses, simply compared to the iTunes version, it is a luxury. For the price of 429 CZK.
Reality: my attempt to rent a movie via iTunes today was a real fiasco. Even though I have a 16M line, the time before I download the movie is estimated at 98 hours. In other words, before the movie is downloaded, I will expire the limit for watching it. Really fine. That was my first and even last attempt at iTunes Movie Rent.
For an overview, I will specify the conditions for renting movies on iTunes:
After downloading, you have 30 days to start watching the movie. Once you start it once, you have 24 hours to watch it, after which the movie will delete itself. You can watch the movie multiple times during this time.
Thanks for the info. Anyway, I somehow got over the urge to use this service. After downloading it all night, it said err in the morning... and what it has downloaded so far is crap.. This is not how I imagined Apple's service. It can't be compared to music, it works for me without any problems.
...so even after several days of trying, I still couldn't get the paid movie from Apple. Everything ends after a few hours with the voice Unknown error 50. Oh yeah... Where are you going Apple?
Digital distribution has failed everywhere. Whether I look at XBox Live, Steam, or iTunes, I see prices that match the "estimated list" price of the product in the store. The problem is usually that even on the day of release, the product is not sold in stores at the list price. Probably due to various more favorable contracts, it is possible to sell the product cheaper in the end. In addition, stores discount the product much faster than digital distribution, so the resulting price difference is often double. The prices for digital distribution are interesting especially when there are some special discounts. The main advantage of digital distribution is not the price, but availability (provided you have very fast Internet).
We can dwell on the rental prices themselves, but in my opinion they are absolutely common in Western Europe (personal experience from the UK). Here, too, it led to that. The last video rental store I saw in the area had new DVDs for 50-60 CZK and Blu-Ray was close to a hundred. Furthermore, I think that these prices are not completely dictated by Apple, but by the producers.
I wouldn't cry too much about the prices. The fact that iTunes is here and we can buy movies and music or rent movies is a huge success. Apple started counting us as part of the EU and offered us the content they offer in the EU at the prices (and currency) they offer in the EU (or am I wrong?). That's why we have this service at all. E.g. services such as XBox Live also offer movie rentals, but they are not available in the Czech Republic, because Microsoft tries to solve it for each country separately, and therefore calculates for each country separately whether it is worth it (of course, the prices are given globally, just like Apple) .
The only things I really agree with in the article are the possibilities of using the offered movies, the absence of FullHD (and apparently also HD sound), the absence of multilingual support, the absence of subtitles. We will probably see FullHD when Apple offers a TV device that can handle it. The lack of subtitles and multilingual support certainly has something to do with copyright. If one purchase of a film would automatically unlock all language mutations and subtitles, all authors would probably have to be paid. This would increase the prices even more.
Movies on iTunes are primarily intended for the English-speaking population, as this is the largest purchasing power. That's the way it is, and it will definitely not change because of a few users from smaller states.