Apple beefing up movie rentals and purchases with iTunes in Canada
Just off the wires, Apple has sent a press release to us announcing the Canadian availability of more content for iTunes. Up until now iTunes' movie download service really focused on the U.S. but the company looks to be establishing a footprint in the Great White North as well.
From Apple:
Apple Premieres Movies on the iTunes Store in Canada
CUPERTINO, California—June 4, 2008—Apple® today announced that movies from major film studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM), Sony Pictures Television International and Lionsgate and Maple Pictures are now available on the iTunes® Store in Canada (www.itunes.ca). Movie purchases and rentals feature iTunes’ legendary ease of use, which makes discovering and enjoying movies as simple and easy as buying music on iTunes has always been. The iTunes Store in Canada features over 1,200 films available for rent or purchase, with titles available for purchase on the same day as their DVD release, including recent blockbusters such as “Juno,” “I Am Legend,” “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets,” “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “Cloverfield.” iTunes Movie Rentals also features over 200 titles available in stunning high definition, perfect for viewing on a widescreen TV with Apple TV®.
“Canadians have made iTunes the most popular place to find and buy music and TV shows online,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We’re thrilled to give iTunes customers access to over 1,200 movies from major studios to rent or purchase, whether to enjoy at home on their widescreen TV with Apple TV or on-the-go on their iPod.”
The iTunes Store is the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store. With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as iTunes Movie Rentals, integrated podcasting directory, iMix playlist sharing, the ability to turn previously purchased tracks into complete albums at a reduced price, and seamless integration with iPod®, the iTunes Store is the best way for Mac® and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music and video online.
With iTunes Movie Rentals, once a movie is rented, it starts downloading from the iTunes Store directly to iTunes or Apple TV, and users with a fast Internet connection can start viewing the movie in seconds. Customers have up to 30 days to start watching it, and once a movie has been started customers have 48 hours to finish it—or watch it multiple times.
Pricing & Availability
Movie purchases and rentals from the iTunes Store for Mac or Windows require iTunes 7.6.2, available as a free download immediately from www.itunes.ca. iTunes movie purchases and rentals require a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase. iTunes movies are available at CAN$9.99 for catalog title purchases, CAN$14.99 for recent releases and CAN$19.99 for new releases. iTunes Movie Rentals are CAN$3.99 for library titles and CAN$4.99 for new releases, with high definition rental versions priced just one dollar more. Movie rentals can be previewed, purchased and watched on iPod classic, iPod nano with video, iPod touch and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV.
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Smart move by Apple, if Hollywood works with them, Apple will have more movie titles in them. One feature I like is you can watch the movie for a month, whereas with Blockbuster we have to return it within a few days for a new movie.
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OK, so now, I'm really getting pissed off about this US/Canada thing. Can someone please tell me why it is more expensive on itunes.ca than it is on itunes.com? Another reason why I will never buy anything from Apple.
Would someone please tell American based companies that the almighty US greenback is not so almighty anymore? I for one am totally sick of getting the slick answers over "it because of the French" or "it has to travel further" or whatever the excuse du jour is.
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Carolyn, I think they keep the prices like this to protect themselves from currency fluctuations in the future. Sometimes they try to over protect themselves also, if the prices are not competitive with the local rates then they will lose for sure.
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cgull, I totally understand the need to protect themselves from currency fluctuations BUT an over 30% difference ($2.99 versus $3.99)? What are we new? Why don't they just ask you to pay in US dollars?
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@ ■ Carolyn E. Price
cgull, I totally understand the need to protect themselves from currency fluctuations BUT an over 30% difference ($2.99 versus $3.99)? What are we new? Why don't they just ask you to pay in US dollars?
iTunes has a pretty big loophole that gets around this Carolyn: If you have a U.S. bank account or credit card, or anyone you know does, you can log out of iTunes Canada and log-in to the U.S. (click on "change country" or whatever it says). All you need to do is add U.S. funds to your iTunes account and you can buy from the U.S.
Add funds to your iTunes account through PayPal (tied to that U.S. account) and iTunes sells in U.S. pricing. I would imagine your PayPal account has to list you as a U.S. resident, but I don't know if you can fake that or not (probably not legal). With the exchange it's the same. As far as I know, they don't check IPs to block content to certain Canada.
I would imagine it's illegal to do this, but I also would be surprised if Apple was not aware of this "loophole" or whatever you want to call it.
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Chris, I know there are probably hundreds of ways around this, my question remains why should I join Cynthia in the law breaker's club?
Look, to rent movies in US $2.99 ... in Canada? $3.99! That is over 30% difference. There is no plausible reason for a price differential of this size other than greed and the complacency on the part of Canadians as a whole.
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