An album I purchased on iTMS recently had a nasty clicking sound in one of the songs. Its was part of the intro track to an Opera, and really hits you in the ear each time you hear it unexpectedly.

I had only just got around to reporting the issue, but iTMS staff rejected the issue due to the timeliness of my report – about 3 months after the purchase. I wrote back advising that this was a “premium cost” iTunes Plus track, and there is still an issue with the track they are selling, no matter the time frame. The response:

Apple takes the quality of the items offered on the iTunes Store seriously and will investigate the issue with this item, but please keep in mind that the iTunes Store does not own the content that we sell and does not have the right to alter the files, even to repair them. The most we can do is contact the content owner and request a repaired replacement, so I can’t say when or if the issue will be resolved. Please try again in a few weeks.

This equates to the fact that they can’t fix the song they are selling. They did give me a song credit, with the advice:

I have also issued a replacement song credit to your account … Please note that song credits are not able to be used for purchasing songs that are listed as Album Only.

And wouldn’t you know it! The bad song is Album only, so IF they fix it, i would have to buy the track again.

Time to look elsewhere? Amazon is not an option as it is US only. A big Duh to the other major online emusic retailers.