iTunes Europe Adds Major Indie Labels

[JoePike]

Firestarter

Somebody in the UK or someplace is grinning ear to ear as they buy a Prodigy album on the Euro-iTMS. No music collection should be without it, in my humble opinion. The White Stripes, on the other hand.....ugh.

 

[mr.steevo]

*couldn't care less*

Isn't this MacBytes material? I mean... this is a rumor site, not a Mac news site, no? I don't mind important news, but this isn't very important (there still is a huge lack of decent music). iPod/iTunes stories are now beating Mac hardware rumors 10 to 1.

Hi,

I agree with the former, but not the latter. This IS news, not a rumour. But as for its level of importance, that is up to the individual.

Where's the New Cube?

s.

 

[Don't panic]

Select Store at the home page of iTMS inside iTunes.
To buy anything you need credit card registered in the appropriate country, of course.

what's the logic behind this?
I mean, If my credit is good to buy songs in the US (for example, it applies in any directions), why does apple NOT want my money for songs that they have in other catalogs but not int the US one. (I almost can see a reason if they have overlaps, almost).

Any songs that is unique, should be available to every store. If it's not unique, than you have to buy it at the store corresponding to the credit card. Why would anybody (Apple, labels, artists) oppose such an arrangement?

 

[Don't panic]

Use VLC, play any region without having to use apple's region changing dealy if I remember correctly.

I'll check it out. thanks

 

[pcharles]

I disagree, I think this is very important. Many more in Europe will now be drawn to iTunes which = +money for apple = +cool stuff for us.

Am I correct in understanding that if we, in the US, wish to purchase these songs we must activate the British or European versions of iTunes and buy the songs in Euros or Pounds? At the current exchange rate that would be about $1.50. In addition to that we could end up paying 17% VAT plus 6% local sales tax.

Anyone tried this and have an idea how it works?

Thanks,

Paul

 

[mrzippy]

Somebody in the UK or someplace is grinning ear to ear as they buy a Prodigy album on the Euro-iTMS. No music collection should be without it, in my humble opinion. The White Stripes, on the other hand.....ugh.

As my previous post stated the Prodigy is still not on the UK iTMS, along with a couple of the other artists that Apple says they have got now.

An odd press release if the songs are not all available to download.

Neil

 

[Sabon]

Labels only have rights to certain companies

When a band signs with a label it is RARE that the label has rights in both Europe, UK, and USA. Normally they sign with another label for another country.

 

[Mattnh]

I disagree, I think this is very important. Many more in Europe will now be drawn to iTunes which = +money for apple = +cool stuff for us.

As soon as they (=Apple) get the Store to work in Europe...
Coverage is pretty poor with only 3 countries out of...

I'm not from any of them, by the way. 😡

 

[Abstract]

Hi,

I agree with the former, but not the latter. This IS news, not a rumour. But as for its level of importance, that is up to the individual.

Where's the New Cube?

s.

Well I agree with him. Why not make use of MacBytes? This is news, not a rumour.

However, I'd like to point out that this is important news for many.

 

[sparks9]

One day these music stores will be truly worldwide. It's a real shame that at the minute they're so balkanised. 😡
Still, this is good news for those of us in Europe who have been impatiently waiting for more music to be added to this music store.

I signed up for the UK store and can't get hold of French music that I like, without going through the rigmarole of setting up two accounts, one for each country. I can buy it on Amazon however as a CD. A lot of music in Europe now is trans-national - many albums have songs in several languages, and sell equally well in several countries (ok, perhaps not Johnny Hallyday 😛 ). The only reasons for this are bureaucratic and political, not technical, so here's hoping that after a couple of years of successful sales this can happen.

I'm looking forward to the cinema store (in a few years), which will hopefully do away with that silly DVD region system. It's time media conglomerates woke up to the global marketplace and starting selling similar products to all countries which are interested.

hmm I think Apple said that they would open a pan european music store in october.... I hope they mean one big store common for all the EU countries. That would be great.

 

[g4cubed]

*couldn't care less*

Isn't this MacBytes material? I mean... this is a rumor site, not a Mac news site, no? I don't mind important news, but this isn't very important (there still is a huge lack of decent music). iPod/iTunes stories are now beating Mac hardware rumors 10 to 1.

Yes this is a rumor site, but not everything worthy of a front page story has to be rumors. I think this is great news. The more the merrier.

Off topic

Hi,
I agree ....

Where's the New Cube?

s.

That's what I say too.... 😉

 

[virividox]

this is great thing

 

[Mudbug]

as I was posting new songs to www.dailytunes.com tonight - I ran into this little issue - sometimes songs are only available from certain countries of origin, depending on which iTMS you use. While this seems obvious (and it is, of course...) the part that was interesting to me is the error message I got trying to access a song that isn't in the US catalog (the URL was submitted to dailytunes). See attached image for what I'm talking about.
linked song in question - there were others

1994?!? maybe there is something about that Y2K thing after all 😉

 

[Stella]

No, you are incorrect. You can only buy music from your country's iTunes Store... so if your in the US, you can only buy from the US store.

Am I correct in understanding that if we, in the US, wish to purchase these songs we must activate the British or European versions of iTunes and buy the songs in Euros or Pounds? At the current exchange rate that would be about $1.50. In addition to that we could end up paying 17% VAT plus 6% local sales tax.

Anyone tried this and have an idea how it works?

Thanks,

Paul

 

[Stella]

DVD Regioning stinks.

if I buy a DVD in the UK and and then move to Canada, for example, do the movie / TV companies really expect me to buy the same DVD in Canada? Because I'm damned well not!! I'll convert the DVDs player to Region free... its my legally purchased DVDs and I'll play them where ever in the bloody world I like!!!!!

DVD Region'ing is also a way of keeping up prices.. DVDs are far cheaper in north american than in Europe.. so if Europeans buy DVDs from north america, say, Canada, movie companies are losing money.

There are plenty of firmware hacks to convert the Macs DVD Players to region free.. then you are free to play whatever region'ed DVDs you have purchased.

DVD region'ing is all a big scam...

Sorry for going off topic... but since the DVD region farce was bought up up.. I thought i'd have a rant!

 

[Stella]

Music Rights...

Just because Sony US allows Apple to sell music on iTMS doesn't automatically give the right for Apple to sell the same tracks on iTMS Europe. Apple have to negioate with record companies for each country...

In iTMS France and Germany there are plenty of Oasis albums, but none in the UK Store... similarly, lots of Mike Oldfield albums in UK store, but only a couple in the US store..

Stupid really, because I could travel over the pond and buy music from European shops with no problem... but no, not over internet.

what's the logic behind this?
I mean, If my credit is good to buy songs in the US (for example, it applies in any directions), why does apple NOT want my money for songs that they have in other catalogs but not int the US one. (I almost can see a reason if they have overlaps, almost).

Any songs that is unique, should be available to every store. If it's not unique, than you have to buy it at the store corresponding to the credit card. Why would anybody (Apple, labels, artists) oppose such an arrangement?

 

[Doctor Q]

1994?!? maybe there is something about that Y2K thing after all 😉

Unix measures time in seconds since the beginning of 1970, so I thought December 28, 1994 might be a certain round number in some base. At this very moment (Doctor Q looks at his Unix watch) it is 1,090,467,665 (40ff3751 hex) in Unix time. Some dates are special in decimal, some in octal or hex. For example, 01:46:40 UTC on September 9 in 2001 was 10^9 seconds after the start of Unix time, and 03:14:07 UTC on January 19in 2038 will be the end of Unix time in 32 bit arithmetic.

But December 28, 1994 (depending on time of day) is about 788,647,600 decimal (2f01ceb0 hex) which doesn't seem special in any particular way.

Notice also that the comma in their message is in the wrong place. They said "December, 28 1994" when they meant "December 28, 1994". So even the meaningless error message has an error in it! 😱

 

[anuj]

*couldn't care less*

Isn't this MacBytes material? I mean... this is a rumor site, not a Mac news site, no? I don't mind important news, but this isn't very important (there still is a huge lack of decent music). iPod/iTunes stories are now beating Mac hardware rumors 10 to 1.

Pretty soon there will be no rumor sites, because there'll be significantly less rumors. Apple's shifting mindsets. Count my word.

 

[Savage Henry]

Digital Dichotomy

Artists like The White Stripes and Jamie Cullum are quite happy to point out that their albums are not made with any computers whatsoever for they want to maintain the pure sound from the old fashioned non-digital way.



And now Cullum and Stripes are happy to put all their music made in the analogue domain on to iTunes in nice 128bps digital format.


Well, I find it interesting anyway......

 

[RogueLdr]

Artists like The White Stripes and Jamie Cullum are quite happy to point out that their albums are not made with any computers whatsoever for they want to maintain the pure sound from the old fashioned non-digital way.
<snip>

I'll remember this the next time I see the computer encoded White Stripes CD at Best Buy. 😉

Seriously though, do the White Stripes feel that their true fans would only buy their recordings on vinyl? If so, I wonder how their conscience handles the fact that the royalty checks they receive are almost entirely derived from CD sales... 😕

 

[Dahl]

The White Stripes and Pixies are independent? Since when?

Or independent in Europe maybe? Because both, if not all the aformentioned bands/artists are distributed by "big five" in the States in some form. Not the entire discography, but majority of albums anyway.

Keyword here is "distributed", Pixies (on 4AD in Europe) were distributed by Electra in the US.

 

[Dahl]

I feel that metal music is strongly missing at the music store, and much of the metal which is there has been encoded really bad, for example, check this one:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=157817&selectedItemId=157807

Could it be the the album given to Apple wasn't remastered before they got it? That MANOWAR album is from '87, it's from the early days of CD's and probably sounds like crap on CD as well.

 

[garybUK]

Music Rights...
In iTMS France and Germany there are plenty of Oasis albums, but none in the UK Store... similarly, lots of Mike Oldfield albums in UK store, but only a couple in the US store..

Funny how uk bands like oasis (from my home city of manchester) are not available on the uk itms. Also bring on the prodigy. I also want the BBC to release more audiobooks... come on harry potter 😛

 

[MacSA]

*couldn't care less*

Isn't this MacBytes material? I mean... this is a rumor site, not a Mac news site, no? I don't mind important news, but this isn't very important (there still is a huge lack of decent music). iPod/iTunes stories are now beating Mac hardware rumors 10 to 1.

I agree with you to a certain extent, no body is taking about Apple Computers anymore, I wouldn't be surprised if there were people out there that thought iPod and iTunes were the only things Apple produced.

 

[Savage Henry]

I'll remember this the next time I see the computer encoded White Stripes CD at Best Buy. 😉

Seriously though, do the White Stripes feel that their true fans would only buy their recordings on vinyl? If so, I wonder how their conscience handles the fact that the royalty checks they receive are almost entirely derived from CD sales... 😕

That's what I can't work out. These artists endorse the non-digital construction of their music, but then practically only sell the stuff via compact disc.

So I think I'll join you with a 😕