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Apr 12, 2001
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Late yesterday, we reported that Apple appeared set to launch iTunes Music Store offerings in ten new countries, all from the European Union, "at any time". Reports are now flowing in from users in those countries that the music offerings have been gradually going live over the past few hours and are now essentially fully functional.

Contrary to the earlier report from Polish media, all twelve European Countries that had been without iTunes Music Store access now appear to be offering music content to customers. The list of countries includes Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

Apple is also making other expansions to its iTunes Store content offerings today, with reports coming in from a number of European countries where users are seeing their first movie downloads available for rental and purchase and the first paid content coming to the iBookstore.

Article Link: iTunes Music Store Goes Live in 12 New European Countries
 

Mad-B-One

macrumors 6502a
Jun 24, 2011
789
5
San Antonio, Texas
In case you wonder...

There are so many local laws regarding copyright and charges for publishing content which is copyright protected that it takes some time until one can offer services. Remember that most youtube videos are not accessible in Germany, a country with roughly 85 million people because the regulatory agency GEMA is blocking potential violations from the get-go.
 

DTphonehome

macrumors 68000
Apr 4, 2003
1,914
3,377
NYC
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Nice. Glad they aren't going to waste 20 minutes with this on Tuesday.
 

apernett

macrumors member
Jul 31, 2010
65
42
Nice but...

...when is Apple going to place its eye on Latin America? Do they know that Netflix already rolled over here, right? right?

Sarcasm aside, I don't blame Apple, I blame movie studios and music labels. Their archaeological way of doing business is quite irritating. Here in Latin America we have a very sincere lust for paid content at a fair price and good service and again and again they block Amazon, Apple and others to expand content not only to Latin America but the rest of the world as well. Yes, I know there is something called Copyright laws, but when it comes to money and their survival, does that archaic rules apply? Wake up guys, you're not in the 20th century anymore.
 

SockRolid

macrumors 68000
Jan 5, 2010
1,560
118
Almost Rock Solid
Just in time for iCloud

iCloud paves the way to Apple's future. The same way iTunes paved the way to where Apple is now. The more people Apple can get onto iTunes and iCloud, the better for Apple.
 

InsightsIE

macrumors 6502a
Sep 29, 2008
665
40
tv shows for eu now, and it be perfect! still a great update for us europeans though!

I know, we totally need TV Shows. And the same catalogue as USA as in UK you can barely get HD! (Living in ireland, i'm sure we nearly have the same tv license deals!)
 

e30st

macrumors newbie
Sep 28, 2011
3
0
in hungary it works well

yeah, finally available here, in Hungary too.
We have been waiting for it, for over 8 years!
Thanks Apple!!
 

moo083

macrumors member
Oct 29, 2002
64
51
Los Angeles, CA
Surprised

I'm pretty surprised iTunes hasn't been available in Poland or Hungary until now. Seems like countries with big enough populations to make it a priority.
 

Jeaz

macrumors 6502a
Dec 12, 2009
678
1,149
Sweden
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5313e Safari/7534.48.3)

The launch with movies seems a bit strange atm. No landing page for movies nor any subtitles in at least my language. Ratings are there though, so I guess it's coming but not 100 ready yet.

EDIT: Actually, there's a landing page now and many movies include subs now, yay!
 
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ruvil

macrumors regular
Dec 26, 2010
137
0
We've had music here in sweden for a while now but we apparently got some movies(!) yesterday or something.

So far there's nothing of interest at all, only hollywood movies etc. I am however hopeful that we'll get some Swedish movies on there soon enough.
 

lukaszsw

macrumors newbie
Jul 30, 2011
5
0
I wish we had movies in polish store! Music is ok, but I would like to be able to get Futurama finally! (without torrents)
 

Skika

macrumors 68030
Mar 11, 2009
2,999
1,246
Really excited about this. As a consumer and a future pro in the industry.
 

AidenShaw

macrumors P6
Feb 8, 2003
18,667
4,676
The Peninsula
We've had music here in sweden....

I wish we had movies in polish store!...

Friendly English grammar note - "Sweden" and "Polish" (noun and adjective) should be capitalized since they refer to countries.

It was easy to recognize that "here in sweden" should have been "here in Sweden".

However, on first reading "a polish store" would be a store that makes things shiny (it "polishes" them).

Just a helpful comment - my French is mediocre, my Spanish bad, my German and Italian barely understandable - but my Thai is fine in restaurants (although tonal languages are very hard for me - I get confused because to me "I'd like sauteed eggplant" and "your grandmother is a slut" sound very similar in Thai). I assume that the waitstaff is being polite and assumes that I'm talking about eggplant, regardless of what I actually said.
 

jmcrutch

macrumors regular
Jul 27, 2010
249
79
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Considering the discussion is about EU countries, I had no problem deciphering that he was referring to the country Poland. Besides, there really aren't any polish stores. What would they sell? Nothing but shoe, silver, and automobile polishes? :)
 

cxny

macrumors 6502
Jan 13, 2004
335
0
New York
seriously?

I haven't opened iTunes except to listen to NPR since Spotify was released in the US. This model is BROKEN.
 

charlituna

macrumors G3
Jun 11, 2008
9,636
816
Los Angeles, CA
I haven't opened iTunes except to listen to NPR since Spotify was released in the US. This model is BROKEN.

Yep. Trouble is that the studios etc broke it and aren't really open to fixing it. Especially on tv from the US where the equally broken ratings system controls what stays on. If they bothered to count funds from online, iTunes etc and stop this delaying for several days, no captions, no even 720p quality, they might be shocked with the results. If they posted shows worldwide on a much shorter timetable they might actually see piracy go down. Particularly if the prices came down a dollar and were straight currency conversions rather than padded with other nonsense. Folks probably wouldn't mind if it wasn't adjusted second by second if it was done say every three months instead of the once every two years it seems like we were getting
 
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