iTunes Europe - Starting in June?

[visor]

sounds credible

As far as the limitation to France, Germany and UK is quite credible. If you walk alonf apple.com you can frequently observe translated pages to frech and german, but no other european languages. Seems like apple has quite a focus on the 'Big 3'.
The timeframe to june should be managable as well

 

[7254278]

Never

Never going to happen because of licensing problems!

People in europe are to hung up on P2P. No one will buy music.

 

[toontra]

Hey, we're subsidizing your price-controlled health care. Want to trade?

Apart from being off topic, what on earth are you talking about!

 

[Colonel Panik]

I'll continue to do what I do now: Refrain from buying copy-protected CDs (which includes most new mainstream productions), buy cheap or used CDs or buy from independent labels. I already bought about 6 albums this year, by the way.

It's funny that you should say that, because I was doing the same, and had bought a couple of copy-protected CDs by mistake and swore never to do the same again. When I put the 'CD's into my standalone CD player, it would spin and negociate the 'CD' for about 2 minutes, before finally playing.
But then one day I put it into my PC running iTunes, and it ripped just like any other CD. So now I'm not so shy of buying cheap copy-protected CDs.

The biggest disadvantage to the artists of a true copy-protected CD is that at parties and gatherings, their music will not be heard by others, as I'm certainly not going to be a DJ for the night, and I'm not going to shuffle CDs and wait for the player to understand the 'CD'. But now that I have the music on my HD, it's jukebox time again.

Record executives are so out of touch with the way people listen to their music that it's worse than sad.

 

[Colonel Panik]

The interesting thing is that out side of the US some of the people who have iPods dont realise you can PLAY music on them ( they use them as a portable storage device). Most people dont realise that you can use iTunes to get music from the iTMS, and the people who do have music on their iPods (like the rest of us) have ripped it from their CD collection.

You are joking, right? Who in their right mind would pay +€500 for a 40GB portable firewire HD?

 

[winmacguy]

You are joking, right? Who in their right mind would pay +€500 for a 40GB portable firewire HD?

No I am not joking at all. I was talking to some of the woman in one of the eveing partime graphic design classes at the school I am studying at. They both had iPods, i am not sure if they were the 15 or 20GB versions. They were using them as file storage and not as MP3 players. In NZ the 20GB iPod costs $749 NZ, although most people I talk to dont realise that you can actually store files that are not music files on them.

Most people I show iTunes to at school as me if that is all the music that I have downloaded from the filesharing networks. I have to explain that iTunes is not designed for that although you can convert .wma files to MP3 files and import them into iTunes.

Our admin tech guy at school just got himself the 40GB iPod for his music files and also for carrying other files and a spare OS or 2 on it.

 

[eSnow]

Thank goodness, they finally saw the light and decided to go ahead in core Europe instead of waiting for the recording industry association of Denmark and Luxemburg.

In Germany, Apple is already behind an established competition, now let's hope they kick some serious ass (promotions, anyone?).

 

[starboard]

do you all think that it will be one iTMS for both the US and EU? or will Apple set up seperate stores for the two markets? I can see it going either way, as there are advantages and problems with both. But mostly likely, imo, Apple will have a seperate EU iTMS that isn't accessible to US comsumers.

 

[eSnow]

Because sound recordings are protected by copyright, Apple needs to obtain permission to distribute copies of those recordings from their respective owners. But that's not all they have to do. Each recording contains a musical composition - a song, in plain English. The record companies don't own the songs. When they manufacture CD's, they obtain licenses from the song owners (we call them "music publishers" in the business). On behalf of our music publisher clients, we've issued millions of these licenses to the record companies.

Mr. Baskin, it might not be so obvious to you as a president of the CMRRA, but if you take a step back and re-read your statement, you might discover where a lot of the problems in the relationship between artists, music industry, licensees and customers come from. This is a nice description of what could otherwise be called "a bloated, inefficient system that is ill-adapted to any use of music beyond pre-recorded CDs because it is so occupied with licensing details that its slowness damages more than it protects".

Now, I understand that every company, organization and civil service serves an important purpose - only there are some that are viewed a bit different depending if you have the inside view or the outside one. I am not going to be the judge who is right here - mainly since I am a EU citizen and don't know the intricacies of canadien licensing deals.
But I have witnessed the demise of communism over here - and there are striking similarities. They, too, had good reasons why this and that was impossible in short time because... Turns out, after the fossilized structures had been abolished, a lot of those factual arguments went out of the window without anyone complaining.

So, best of luck to you and your organization. I am sure, Canadian consumers will rejoice if they are able to legally download music some time in the future. Just remember that mp3 was invented only roughly 10 years ago - so no need to hurry, right?

Oh, and - it's nothing personal. Actually, I appreciate a music licensing exec who has the guts to answer in public. Kudos.

 

[dbasskin]

Is the world of music licensing complex? Yes. Is such complexity inevitable? Yes, but complexity isn't the same thing as inefficiency. We start from one unshakeable premise: songwriters and music publishers are entitled to fair compensation for the use of their music. The computer maker gets paid, the ISP gets paid, the music vendor gets paid, the record companies get paid. They don't work for free - why should songwriters and music publishers?

The purpose of music licensing as carried on by CMRRA is to make a very large number of songs available with a minimum of complexity and delay to those who wish to use them. Through CMRRA, an online music vendor can obtain licenses for over 90% of the songs it wants to use - and that number is climbing every day as more music publishers join up with us. It's too complex and expensive for all but a handful of music copyright owners to make licensing deals with online music vendors. It just makes sense to team up and concentrate their negotiating power to get the best deal out of the online companies. At the same time, collective licensing gives the online music vendor very close to one-stop shopping for the rights it needs.

We've built an efficient, low-cost system for music licensing that's satisfying the needs of music publishers and delivering licenses to companies doing business in Canada. No online music vendor is being held up from being in business by the lack of availability of licenses for the reproduction of the music we represent. if this seems like communism to you, what's your alternative? A system in which the most important people in the whole world of music - the songwriters - are compelled to work for free? That doesn't make any sense.

Much of the public's discontent - even anger - on the subject of online music comes from the contrast between the ease with which music may be taken without consent - rip a song from a CD or download it over an P2P system - and the apparent complexity of running an online music business.

Yes, it's more complex, and more expensive to organize and run an online music retail operation than it is to obtain music through unauthorized means. But show me a business that doesn't have its complexities. Ultimately, the marketplace will decide on the winners and losers amongst online music companies, and the rewards will go to those who took the risks and executed to the public's satisfaction. No taxpayers' dollars are involved here - just those of companies and investors putting their capital at risk in hope of making an above-nominal return. That's what business is all about.

At CMRRA, we're doing our bit to make this business a reality for Canadian consumers. Any company that wants to sell music online in Canada needs licenses to reproduce the songs it wants to use. No such company is farther than 48 hours away from signing a licensing deal with us and gaining access to almost all the songs it wants to use. As I've pointed out elsewhere, such companies have other tasks to undertake before they can be in business. They have to obtain the rights to use the recordings, and there's no one-stop agency for that. They have to negotiate separate deals with each record label whose recordings they want to use. That's not impossible, it's just time-consuming. They also have to put together their infrastructure, and design, code and operate their systems. Impossible? No. Complicated and time-consuming? Yes.

Likewise, any company that wants to operate in multiple territories has some big tasks ahead of it, all of which are capable of being done, but all of which take time. I share everyone's frustration with how long it's taking iTunes Music Store to come to Canada, but the matter is in their hands. Even if music publishers and songwriters fell on their swords tomorrow and agreed to the use of their songs without licenses or compensation, it would still take time and effort to achieve.

Once again, I urge those of you with an interest in this subject to make your views known to Apple Canada.

David A. Basskin
President
CMRRA Ltd.
Toronto, Canada

 

[Maxicek]

People in europe are to hung up on P2P. No one will buy music.

First Post!

I for one will be using the iTMS. I don't find there is enough sources of greater than 192Kbps MP3s on the P2P networks. I find the bass on 128Kbps MP3 tracks to be a bit flabby when compared to AAC. Downloading from a website where I know the quality and availability is guaranteed will be refreshing and I don't have a problem with paying for it.

 

[neilg]

Hoo-bloody-ray!

 

[~Shard~]

First Post!

I for one will be using the iTMS. I don't find there is enough sources of greater than 192Kbps MP3s on the P2P networks. I find the bass on 128Kbps MP3 tracks to be a bit flabby when compared to AAC. Downloading from a website where I know the quality and availability is guaranteed will be refreshing and I don't have a problem with paying for it.

Yep, you hit the nail on the head with that one - these are some of the main reaosns why iTMS has been such a great success, and will continue to be. There will always be people out there who never want to pay for anything in their lives, think nothing is worth paying for and want everything for free, but what can you do about those type of ignorant, disrespectful people? iTMS is an excellent concept and one that will see continued success, especially with international iTMS approaching now in the near future - I can't wait!

 

[eSnow]

Is the world of music licensing complex? Yes. Is such complexity inevitable? Yes, but complexity isn't the same thing as inefficiency.

That I do not doubt - as I wrote in my first post, every organization sees its problems, goals and methods in a certain way. Of course it is complex! The structures - of which CMRRA are only one part - are so complex, because the issue at hand is complex, the matters are difficult and a lot of creative people have to be compensated for their effords.

All fine and dandy - and believe me, I do believe everyone should be compensated for their effords. But - to tell me that 10 years after the online revolution started rolling, close to 5 years after Napster and still no convenient canadian or european download stores, we are not talking about infefficiency is insulting my intelligence. As a customer, I don't care about excuses - you get paid to solve the complex issues, and fast.

Much of the public's discontent - even anger - on the subject of online music comes from the contrast between the ease with which music may be taken without consent - rip a song from a CD or download it over an P2P system - and the apparent complexity of running an online music business.

Yes, it's more complex, and more expensive to organize and run an online music retail operation than it is to obtain music through unauthorized means. But show me a business that doesn't have its complexities.

Somehow, a lot of businesses have done a much better job at handling the complexities their specific field brings than the music industry and the licensing authorities. This is where P2P gets a lot of its appeal from:

Over where I live, I have basically three ways to get music:
1) buy a CD. I own about 200 of them. Unfortunately, most new releases carry a "copy protection" sheme that makes it impossible to play them on a computer CD drive. Since I do not own a stand-alone drive, I cannot play this music (without circumventing the copy protection scheme, which would be illegal).

2) buy online. The number of download stores that offers a format playable on MacOS is and accepting my CC is - zero. You believe I download WMA to transcode it to mp3 (probably illegal, who knows?) and have a funny sounding file, you think again.

3) P2P. The quality is good, the ID-tags are usually lousy and it is illegal. But it is currently my only option for a lot of tunes.

So, what do you think I am doing, realistically? Don't listen to music?
I will buy at the iTMS (or a comparable offering), but you and the rest of the music biz is just losing one whole generation to P2P. Your only hope is to cry for daddy and have downloaders sent to jail with sentences like you would get for rape and manslaughter. I am not sure if this will work, but something deep inside tells me it will fall on its face. Because it is ridiculous.

The necessity to re-structure the whole revenue chain arose with the first consumer CD burner - ca 1994. And nothing has really happened to this day. Someone has to realize that at a certain point, more of the same will no longer cut it. A lot of industries had to learn this - from weaving mills to camera production. Others rose to the challenge, restructured and survived.

 

[~Shard~]

The necessity to re-structure the whole revenue chain arose with the first consumer CD burner - ca 1994. And nothing has really happened to this day. Someone has to realize that at a certain point, more of the same will no longer cut it. A lot of industries had to learn this - from weaving mills to camera production. Others rose to the challenge, restructured and survived.

And don't forget, to a lesser degree, the advent of the tape cassette recorders some 10 years before that. Grant it, there was no Internet at that time, so the accessibility of music was much less pronounced and in this digital age things are much different, but even back then in the 80's, it was the same thing, to a lesser degree. CD burning was no different than copy cassette tapes for your friends (just as VHS is to DVDs now). This issue (in one form or another) has been a round for a while - industries have to adapt and face the challenges presented to them, or else they will suffer greatly. And addressing the complexities and demands of changing society, technology and paradigms is NOT solved by simply slapping multi-thousand-dollar fines on 12-year old children and trying to lock up music-lovers in prison.

 

[blybug]

2) buy online. The number of download stores that offers a format playable on MacOS is and accepting my CC is - zero. You believe I download WMA to transcode it to mp3 (probably illegal, who knows?) and have a funny sounding file, you think again.

Take a look at allofmp3.com. This is a site based in Russia and according to their site Russian copyright law allows the music to be sold this way, without any digital rights management. A few remarkable things about this site:

• The selection is at least as broad and complete as the iTMS. I've found plenty there that is not on the iTMS
• Offers 30-sec high-quality previews and full length low-quality (24kbps) previews to stream or download
• The pricing scheme is "pay by the MB" and the price can't be beat... $0.01 per MB, translates to 3-4c per song at 128kbps or $10.00 per GB of music
• On-the-fly online encoding available with your choice of bitrate and format...MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG anywhere from 128 up to 384kbps. You choose the format and the bitrate when you buy the song, and it is encoded in a few seconds while you wait. This really makes sense when combined with the per MB pricing...if you want to have the higher quality, you pay a few cents more for the larger file!

I'm still not quite believing that this is "legal". I have no idea how copyright laws in Russia affect a downloader in the US or Europe, but this site is up and running, seems legit, and is leaps and bounds better than P2P. And more interesting is how they have implemented the real-time encoding in the format and bitrate chosen by the user. Proof positive that the technology exists and it can be done. I recommend to everyone to try this out to see how it works! Make a payment of $10 with PayPal or Visa and give it a test run!

Apple should be scared of this, because this capability in a music store is the real threat to the iPod. Right now, people are buying the iPod because it is the best player, and choosing the iTMS to buy their music because that's what "comes with it". Once a more mainstream site offers the variety of format and encoding options that allofmp3 offers, people may choose the store first then go out and buy any old player.

Of course in the US there would be DRM and the price per song would be higher, but the ability to choose format and quality on-the-fly could pose a real threat the the iTunes<-->iPod symbiosis and dominance (unless Apple implements it first, of course).

 

[crenz]

You do realize that you can burn those files to an audio CD, right?

CD-Rs are lousy long-term storage mediums, so that won't help. Plus I have lost some information already, due to lossy compression. Plus I have a crappy CD-R, instead of a nice CD with booklet etc.

I'm not against digital downloads at all, I just don't like the way they are being handled right now.

 

[eSnow]

Take a look at allofmp3.com.

Wow, this is a helluva cool site. Why can they offer choice in the encoding format - or, better: why do other sites offer no choice? This makes the iTMS positively look dated.

This is the kind of consumer-oriented thinking I am talking about. And they are already selling instead of cutting red tape and studying licensing issues.

But enough of that, I have some music to buy - see you later

 

[crenz]

...but pricing decisions are entirely in the hands of the operators of online services, Apple included.

Thanks for the insight, David. Is there information available on what the licensing fees are that are charged to companies like the ones you mentioned, and how much of that goes to the artists? Would be quite interesting.

 

[crenz]

Wow, this is a helluva cool site. Why can they offer choice in the encoding format - or, better: why do other sites offer no choice?

Because they don't use DRM, and because with prices as low as that, I really doubt much of it goes to the artists.

 

[Sayhey]

I hope this happens soon and it means we in the US have more access to European music.

 

[wolfywolfbits]

eSnow, dbasskin am I missing something?

I don't understand the analogy to communism, or the general complaint from eSnow at all

I thought dbasskin explained quite clearly that the hold up isn't with them.. but rather with online music stores themselves (i.e. The online stores haven't tried to complete the licensing negotiations)

In fact from dbasskin's explanation of the licensing model it sounds pretty stream lined (compared to licensing issues with TV shows that I've had some dealings with); just begging for an online stores to take advantage of it

Perhaps the better analogy is to capitalism, since it seems that the online stores don't see the bucks to be made in opening a Canadian branch

 

[ottawaman]

Take a look at allofmp3.com. This is a site based in Russia and according to their site Russian copyright law allows the music to be sold this way, without any digital rights management. A few remarkable things about this site:

• The selection is at least as broad and complete as the iTMS. I've found plenty there that is not on the iTMS
• Offers 30-sec high-quality previews and full length low-quality (24kbps) previews to stream or download
• The pricing scheme is "pay by the MB" and the price can't be beat... $0.01 per MB, translates to 3-4c per song at 128kbps or $10.00 per GB of music
• On-the-fly online encoding available with your choice of bitrate and format...MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG anywhere from 128 up to 384kbps. You choose the format and the bitrate when you buy the song, and it is encoded in a few seconds while you wait. This really makes sense when combined with the per MB pricing...if you want to have the higher quality, you pay a few cents more for the larger file!

I'm still not quite believing that this is "legal". I have no idea how copyright laws in Russia affect a downloader in the US or Europe, but this site is up and running, seems legit, and is leaps and bounds better than P2P. And more interesting is how they have implemented the real-time encoding in the format and bitrate chosen by the user. Proof positive that the technology exists and it can be done. I recommend to everyone to try this out to see how it works! Make a payment of $10 with PayPal or Visa and give it a test run!

Apple should be scared of this, because this capability in a music store is the real threat to the iPod. Right now, people are buying the iPod because it is the best player, and choosing the iTMS to buy their music because that's what "comes with it". Once a more mainstream site offers the variety of format and encoding options that allofmp3 offers, people may choose the store first then go out and buy any old player.

Of course in the US there would be DRM and the price per song would be higher, but the ability to choose format and quality on-the-fly could pose a real threat the the iTunes<-->iPod symbiosis and dominance (unless Apple implements it first, of course).

Nice site. All the Beatles songs are available for download for instance. Somehow I doubt Apple Corps in UK has given this Russian site permission to sell their entire catalogue for a few pennies...They can claim that they don't break any laws in Russia all they want, but they still need permission from the copyright holders. All ain't right, back in the USSR...

 

[thecombatwombat]

No online music vendor is being held up from being in business by the lack of availability of licenses for the reproduction of the music we represent. if this seems like communism to you, what's your alternative?

http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/

The heading "We can do so much better" pretty much says it as well as I could.

Like eSnow said, a big change in the record industry has seemed due for easily a decade. It's always been my opinion that a considerable factor in the stagnancy of the industry is that a system like this, so long overdue, would not promote piracy but level the playing field for independent musicians. Is there simply no truth to this?

 

[minstryoffunk]

G5 Powerbook? Pfft. I want a G10 and I want it now!

g10?

hell, if we're going to go that route, than I demand an H10, and I want it so small that I can get it implanted behind my ear. I could get usb in my left arm and FW800 in my right. goddam that would be cool.

I expect it next tuesday

and I want my health insurance to cover it, too