CUSTOMERS in Spain are paying around a third less than Britain to download music, films and video games online.

Teenage girls looking at laptop
CHEAPER DOWNLOADS: In America

But they pay even less in America, where popular music and film streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify are cheaper as well.

This is despite there being no associated costs such as distribution or delivery with online download purchases.

However, both Netflix (tv series and film streaming service launching in Spain in October) and Spotify (music streaming service) are still more expensive in the UK than Spain.

An Olive Press investigation found the biggest download price difference was for video game Assassin’s Creed IV: Black flag, which costs €29.99 to download from the Sony Playstation website in Spain, a whopping €61.15 in Britain and just €28.52 in the USA (when converted into euros).

Meanwhile, the costs of downloads from Apple’s iTunes and Google’s Playstore again favour Americans. For example, the cost to download the film American Sniper from iTunes is €13.99 in Spain, compared to €19 in Britain and a mere €11.47 for our transatlantic cousins.

This comes after it emerged British users of Amazon Prime pay up to €80 more for the service than their European counterparts.

After a free 30-day trial of the one-day delivery service, customers are charged €107 a year to continue. But the same service costs just €15 in Spain, for once outdoing the USA, where it costs €88.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. A critical point not addressed in this article is that broadband is very expensive in Spain, and the quality can also be abysmal. It’s all very well paying less for games etc, but if you can’t play or use them properly then it’s a waste of time. For the cost of 5 Megabyte broadband in Andalucia, the UK (for example) can provide a 100 Megabyte service with loads of content included.

  2. Never understood why Broadband was so much more expensive and seems erratic in parts of Andalucia. Friends who live in the not so hot property of Guadalhorce valley have dreadful internet which costs a bomb, they can’t have a land line either, their TV has to come through their iPads and is distorted so they only use it occasionally, and they play some weird 24 hour piped music from a Spanish radio station for entertainment, which is ok for an hour. The other entertainment is barking dogs all over the valley’s hillsides. They thought they’d bought an idyllic finca with distant views only to find the main prison nicely lit up below them at night. Now house trapped for last 14 years or so with poor facilities. Looked lovely in the sun when they viewed.

  3. I’m lucky to have been in the right place at the right time (1990s’/Brighton car boots) to buy virtually all my vinyl s/hand, classical about 600 LPs and rock/Jazz about 400 LPs. Lots bought for £1, most I ever paid was £2.
    High definition downloads in France approx. €14, much cheaper in the USA but none remotely as cheap as my s/hand vinyl.
    The Apple system is junk compared to a real sound system be it vinyl or CD/SACD/DVD but most of the young don’t know just how crap it is.
    Now here’s the thing – just what do you get with a music download? Bruce Willis found out that his $90K downloaded music collection was not his to sell on if he wanted to and then there is the problem of hard disc corruption. No hard disc will last more than 10 years at best, so you have to make at least one other copy and keep it in a very safe place or you could through theft or disc corruption lose everything.
    How often have I a bought an LP and got tired of it or moved on in musical tastes – easy, sell it. Some of my music is worth more now than when I bought it. I’m going to rationalise my collection, probably selling more than half, this simply is’nt an option with downloads.

    Plus lots of youngsters when they hear music played on a good sound system get hooked, hence the old black disc is’nt dying but is going from strength to strength. My Japanese D/D ‘super decks’ from the 80s’ have rocketed in price, incredible engineering and design, something else that the some of the young have got into.
    Re. broadband etc. Most things in France are way more expensive but not communications. We have a contract with Orange for 24/7 i/net broadband/sat. TV loads of channels inc. Al Jazeera (Arabic/french/English) CNBC financial (probably the best in the world) Bloomberg/NHK Japan etc. and best of all – landline to landline 24/7 to 80 countries – fantastic for anyone running a business + 2 hours a month of calls to mobiles @ € 47 per month, with an English language help line (for lazy Brits who can’t be bothered to learn French). SFR(Vodafone) is even cheaper – do not ask my opinion of Telefonica – it’s unprintable.

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