So much for buying “import” MP3s.

While watching a recent episode of the British TV program The Graham Norton Show on BBC America, I discovered a Scottish singer named Sharleen Spiteri, formerly of the rock group Texas. I liked the retro cool-’60s sound of her single “All the Times I Cried,” so I thought I’d check out her album. I bopped over to the Amazon MP3 store, which I’m loving, but found that her album wasn’t listed. It was available in Amazon’s CD store, I was told, but only as an import disc selling for $22 (and it was out of stock).

OK, so she hasn’t hit stateside yet. “Not a problem,” I thought. “I’ll head over to the recently launched Amazon UK MP3 store.” Sure enough, there was her album, Melody, in all its MP3 glory. So I went through the motions to buy it, essentially doing the 21st-century equivalent of buying the import CD. In fact, I already had an Amazon UK account from having ordered such discs in past years. But when I went to check out, I was told I couldn’t do it. The reason, as explained in the site’s FAQ under “Territorial Restrictions”: “As required by our Digital Content providers, Digital Content will, unless otherwise designated, be available only to customers located in the United Kingdom.”

Well, dang. That doesn’t make any sense. The album is not available in the United States. So if I want it, I can order an import CD. But I can’t do the same for an MP3?

I’m not the first person to note this discrepancy. BBC News columnist Bill Thompson wrote about it in 2007, but he was complaining about it from the opposite shore of the Atlantic, as a Brit who couldn’t buy from the U.S.-based Amazon MP3 store. This is a new problem for Americans, because Amazon UK launched its MP3 operation only in December. Also, Thompson pegs the issue as the price to pay for the fact that Amazon’s files are DRM-free, unlike iTunes (at the time; iTunes is in the process of changing that). But a check shows that Spiteri’s album is not available through iTunes, either. Melody simply was not released in the U.S.

Why would any record company prevent Amazon from legally selling its products, no matter where the buyer is? It can’t be due to copyright issues or other problems, because I can still buy the CD if I wanted. I guess I’ll just buy a used copy of the CD for about the price I would have paid for a download and rip it myself. Ironically, the record company won’t get any money as a result of that transaction. How bizarre.

As Thompson rightly concludes: “If anyone can take the record companies and the current online music retailers and show them how it should be done then it is Amazon. But if the record companies continue to push their old-world business practices, insisting on territorial limits and other restrictions, then even Amazon will find it impossible to save the music industry from the implosion which lies ahead.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 am and is filed under Audio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.