iTMS for Canada

[MacRumors]

Globe and Mail reports on the online music services and the Music Industry in Canada. It appears Canadian readers will have to wait until September at least before Apple's iTunes Music service arrives:

By mid to late September, the CRIA will have completed negotiations to set up a framework for paying music publishers and composers whose music is downloaded on pay-for-play systems, Mr. Robertson said.
That will allow Canadian-based services to start operations, he said, and allow U.S. systems such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes "music store" to expand into Canada.

The article expects that Apple will add Canada to the iTunes Music store after these negotiations are complete.

 

[Wonder Boy]

Oh Canada.

 

[Pedro Estarque]

Apple must run before everybody gets into this "music store" business. If they don't, iTunes will be only one more Music Store.

 

[Docrjm]

Not soon enough. Hopefully they will have signed up some independants in Canada by then.

 

[zim]

what will be sad is if everyone, msn, aol, ect..., is sitting back waiting for apple to open up the flood gates, making it easier to negotiate other music services.

 

[Freg3000]

This is good news for Apple. The sooner they get this to go international the better. However, I see this as a double edge sword. Although I am sure Apple has enough resources to do both at once, I worry that apple is not focusing all its energy on iTunes for Windows, and rather spreading it out. While an international iTunes is especially good to spur sales in-between the hype of the music store as it stands and the Windows version, it might slow development of the Windows version, unfortunately. So it's a sticky situation. Develop the international versions of the music store at the risk of slowing down the Windows version, or speed it up in order to tie over sales before windows is ready?

I know that what I said was confusing (very, very confusing) but hopefully I threw so much out there that something made sense.

 

[Nermal]

Good to see it starting to go international. Sony NZ and Universal NZ have granted permission to Apple over here, but they're not expecting a launch until January.

 

[rickvanr]

cost

how much will it cost up north? like $1.49 a song? or do u think itd still be 99 cents...

 

[Chealion]

About freaking time! With the Canadian Dollar rising and if Apple really wants to sell songs, they should definitely sell songs for 99 cents

 

[MasterX (OSiX)]

I'm willing to believe that Apple has a team for negotiating with the RIAA/Big5 etc, and they have their MacOS X team, software teams and windows apps team (for quicktime, apple works and not much else - thankfully )

So I think what apple does with negotiating for Mac iTunes will also work for Windows iTunes

 

[adamfilip]

bout time.

i bet it will be $1.50 CDN per song
but it should be $1.25

 

[Jerry Spoon]

I just hope the windows version in Canada is soon to follow...along with the windows version in the US.

 

[Squire]

Question

I have my one-click account set up with my address in Canada, but I live in Korea. Will I be able to buy tunes?

Originally posted by Chealion
About freaking time! With the Canadian Dollar rising and if Apple really wants to sell songs, they should definitely sell songs for 99 cents

I wonder if they'll just stick to $ 0.99 US everywhere in the world?

Squire

 

[zim]

hum, that is an interesting question, what if one was to travel out of their own country. say if i, i live in the us, traveled to canada right now, would i be able to still buy music? never thought about that.

found my answer:
10. Territory. The Service is available only in the United States, and is not available in any other location. You agree not to use or attempt to use the Service from outside of the available territory, and that Apple may use technologies to verify your compliance.

 

[BaghdadBob]

Originally posted by Wonder Boy
Oh Canada.

You know...I was just thinking that...of course "Not Without My Anus" was the edition I was thinking of....

What can be said about this that hasn't been said already? Hurry the hell up everyone and get out of Apple's way, let them peddle their freaking wares already.

In fact, since we all have faith in Apple Corp, just don't regulate them at all and let them do whatever they need to to make as much money as possible. Go capitalism!

 

[Docrjm]

Originally posted by Freg3000
This is good news for Apple. The sooner they get this to go international the better. However, I see this as a double edge sword. Although I am sure Apple has enough resources to do both at once, I worry that apple is not focusing all its energy on iTunes for Windows, and rather spreading it out. While an international iTunes is especially good to spur sales in-between the hype of the music store as it stands and the Windows version, it might slow development of the Windows version, unfortunately. So it's a sticky situation. Develop the international versions of the music store at the risk of slowing down the Windows version, or speed it up in order to tie over sales before windows is ready?

I know that what I said was confusing (very, very confusing) but hopefully I threw so much out there that something made sense.

Bollocks, get iTMS out for international users ASAP. I believe that Apple has enough Programmer reserve to do both simultaneously. How do I know?
Well iTMS for windows requires programmers and iTMS international requires negotiation, two separate skills. iTMS for mac is already available, they just need to be able to accept funds other than us.

 

[Abstract]

I'm just happy to have a rough date. I was hoping it was before Jan 2004, but I didn't know when it would come. September......2004.......okay......gotcha.

Oh Canada.

...our home and native land...

 

[Nermal]

Originally posted by zim
hum, that is an interesting question, what if one was to travel out of their own country. say if i, i live in the us, traveled to canada right now, would i be able to still buy music? never thought about that.

found my answer:
10. Territory. The Service is available only in the United States, and is not available in any other location. You agree not to use or attempt to use the Service from outside of the available territory, and that Apple may use technologies to verify your compliance.

Huh? So why does it say somewhere that international users can use it if they've got a US credit card?

 

[lynnpye]

Originally posted by Freg3000
This is good news for Apple. The sooner they get this to go international the better. However, I see this as a double edge sword. Although I am sure Apple has enough resources to do both at once, I worry that apple is not focusing all its energy on iTunes for Windows, and rather spreading it out. While an international iTunes is especially good to spur sales in-between the hype of the music store as it stands and the Windows version, it might slow development of the Windows version, unfortunately. So it's a sticky situation. Develop the international versions of the music store at the risk of slowing down the Windows version, or speed it up in order to tie over sales before windows is ready?

I know that what I said was confusing (very, very confusing) but hopefully I threw so much out there that something made sense.

To be honest, I don't see that there would be much overlap here. Most of the work to get iTMS to go international is likely licensing, legal and accounting issues. The work to get iTunes on Windows is probably mostly technical. So I see developers doing the Windows port and lawyers, accountants, marketers doing the iTMS international push.

 

[dguisinger]

Personally, I'm not going to use iTunes anymore. After a mishap with Panther erasing both partitions of my drive, I don't feel I owe apple another $0.99 for every song I had. Luckily I only had 10 songs, but I don't think they deserve to get paid for their bugs.

I wouldn't mind paying $2 to redownload all purchased music, but paying full price to replace, no way.

 

[BaghdadBob]

Originally posted by dguisinger
Personally, I'm not going to use iTunes anymore. After a mishap with Panther erasing both partitions of my drive, I don't feel I owe apple another $0.99 for every song I had. Luckily I only had 10 songs, but I don't think they deserve to get paid for their bugs.

I wouldn't mind paying $2 to redownload all purchased music, but paying full price to replace, no way.

Ah, I believe you just have to hit "Check for purchased music" and it replaces all of it for you. Have you tried that? I'm pretty sure it works like that.

 

[kanaka]

Originally posted by dguisinger
Personally, I'm not going to use iTunes anymore. After a mishap with Panther erasing both partitions of my drive, I don't feel I owe apple another $0.99 for every song I had. Luckily I only had 10 songs, but I don't think they deserve to get paid for their bugs.

I wouldn't mind paying $2 to redownload all purchased music, but paying full price to replace, no way.

Ummm, riiight. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Panther still only a developer preview release? If you're using a beta operating system you shouldn't be surprised to find bugs, even serious ones (you are a developer, right?). And if you are using a beta operating system, wouldn't you deem it prudent to back up your stuff? I hope I don't sound like too much of a jerk, but your post just doesn't make any sense to me!

 

[Vonnie]

Great, now the rest of the world!

Come on Apple, try to show a little bit of respect for the non-us customers.. We already pay a hefty premium on hard and software and don't get the same services (book printing in iPhoto for example).

 

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by kanaka
Ummm, riiight. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Panther still only a developer preview release? If you're using a beta operating system you shouldn't be surprised to find bugs, even serious ones (you are a developer, right?). And if you are using a beta operating system, wouldn't you deem it prudent to back up your stuff? I hope I don't sound like too much of a jerk, but your post just doesn't make any sense to me!

But iTMS should have a system where the user can re-download the music if they have already bought it and it has been erased. Of cource you can also get the song again for Kazaa, but the quality is not always as good as the songs on iTMS because they are in MP3. Lots of other companies that offer download software for sale let you download it again if it has been erased from your HD.

Also it is very hard to back the music up, since you first need to de-authorize it and then copy it to another disk. However you may not then be able to play it on your Mac. You can't back it up on an ipod ether, because you can't copy it back to your Mac.

This is why I will be keeping to buying CDs for the time being since there are too many restrictions of iTMS music (although Apple is still the most relaxed in terms of what you can do with your music, compared to other music download shops.)

 

[Squire]

Originally posted by Nermal
Huh? So why does it say somewhere that international users can use it if they've got a US credit card?

Well, you see, I think I can order prints through iPhoto with my Korean credit card and Canadian address. (I haven't gone through the whole procedure yet but just about.) The iTunes Music Store, on the other hand, shoots me down as soon as I log in. "Sorry, it's not available in your country yet...blah, blah, blah."

Squire