MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Won't this decision leave piracy as the ONLY means of digital movie distribution. hmm...

In that part of the world they just got no respec' for ownership... 50c for any DVD you want. Why would they use iTunes?

Macaday is on the money.

I have been there and in Latin America as well. It would be a waste. Why pay 99c/track when you can buy the whole CD from a street vendor for $4-$5 and no DRM crap. In some places you can actually call someone and they will come over and install a new hard drive full of songs.

JEG:In some places you can actually call someone and they will come over and install a new hard drive full of songs.

And no telling what sort of spyware....

I thought it was because Mandarin and Cantonese subtitles completely obscured the movie on a 2.5 inch diagonal screen.

I thought it was because there is always a lag between the audio and when the actors' lips move.

Oh man, that's really pissed me off. I live in HK and would love to be one of the first to download CARS via iTunes because I was too busy at work to watch it on the cinema, and now will have to spend hours ripping the DVD (when it comes out) to MP4 format...
When I used a pc, I didn't give a damn about pirac), its true. But since moving to Mac, there's something about it that says "some things are worth paying for".

This is ridiculous... how do they expect to defeat piracy without iTunes?

Sure, you can get an illegal copy on some back alley, but if you have the convenience of an immediate download of a movie -- one that might not be in that back alley at all -- you will pay the premium for that convenience. (I mean, why does anyone buy on iTunes here if they can eventually get a used CD for so much less?)

Also, it's a lot easier to pirate a DVD than a FairPlay-encoded file...

When will media companies realize that the holy grail -- having ALL content available for immediate digital purchase -- will only increase sales and defeat piracy in the long run?

I wonder if it was Apple or the studios that made that decision.

New Zealand iTunes please! Not that it would be of use to anyone outside NZ, because you can't purchase music at other nation's iTMS (lame). You can't even send a gift certificate to be used at another nation's iTMS store (really lame).

I'm in the US and would love to be able to buy tunes from other nations' iTMS. I have a list of songs I'd buy that are not available from the US store that would probably max out a CC if I could buy them.

I live in South Korea and use iTunes to purchase music and videos here. You just need a credit card with a stateside billing address. Why pay when DVDs are available for $5 at most subway stations? Quality, convenience!!! Apple should enter the market here to provide a legal avenue to download. Plus, there are more honest people than some might suspect.

Well, don't color all Asian countries with the same brush. Singapore (where i live and work) respects IP laws and have laws in place to prohibit these so-called rampant piracy. You would be hard-pressed to find CDs or DVDs of pirated material in Singapore.

I, for one, would sign up for a legitimate avenue to purchase songs/movies online from Apple without a second thought (and I did try but of course, since my credit card originates from Singapore, I could not complete the account opening at ITMS).