Harry Potter and the Astonishing iTunes Price Mix-Up
Much to Hollywood’s dismay, home video watchers are increasingly disinterested in buying movies.
But if you price these things really, really low, you’ll find some takers. Hence a flurry of interest this morning when the Internet discovered that Apple’s iTunes store was selling all eight “Harry Potter” movies for an astonishing $10.
I just bought 8 movies that cost nearly a billion dollars to make and distribute for under 10 dollars. Content doesn’t have value? Psh.
— Ethan Kaplan (@ethank) August 13, 2013
Except it turns out that Apple — or more precisely Warner Bros., which sets the prices for its movies — didn’t mean to practically give its stuff away. The $10 price is now gone, replaced by a cheap-but-more-plausible $60.
I’ve asked Apple for comment, but I assume that if they have one, it’s along the lines of “Oops. Our bad.”
Meanwhile, other iTunes bundle pricing remains intact. For instance, you can still get “Godfather” I and II for $20; sadly, the bundle also includes the last “Godfather.”