Over the weekend I’ve felt a sudden urge to listen to one of Ben Harper’s records. I went to iTunes to check the price and availability - $17.99NZ for a DRM-ed version. Ahem… A bit pricey compared to what I’ve seen in Amazon MP3 downloads - $8.99US for unrestricted MP3 version. Of course, I knew Amazon shop is US only, but nevertheless I clicked the 
button to make sure they really didn’t want my money. Turned out they didn’t:
We are sorry…
We could not process your order because of geographical restrictions on the product which you were attempting to purchase. Please refer to the terms of use for this product to determine the geographical restrictions.We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
I understand that Amazon and music labels treat that project as an experiment and after it proves to work it will be (hopefully) extended to other countries as well, but without a given time line when that could happen, it’s really hard to accept iTunes conditions. Beside it, it doesn’t really take a lot of special powers to predict that a globally accessible MP3 shop offering what Amazon currently does, would beat iTunes hands down and could easily become a standard in music distribution. Come on Apple, Amazon - you can’t overcharge like that or make clients jump through hoops when illegal sources are so easily reachable.
So, guess what?! Nobody got my money and I’ll leave it to you to guess to what I’m listening right now. Oh, and of course I’ll buy that album as soon as Amazon or any other shop offers me the same deal the US residents get.
