The sooner the better. There are already some other services starting in europe and it would be a shame if Apple is soo late behind others.
Bring it on !
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iTunes Europe Update
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MCCFR said:
Actually, a representative of Apple Switzerland said in an interview earlier this year that iTMS was ready to be launched in Switzerland but Apple wanted to launch it in all European countries simultaneously. If they can't achieve that goal within next the few months, they should really reconsider their all-at-once strategy and get iTMS out of the door where it's ready.
eSnow said:Yeah, but Switzerland is no part of Europe
Excuse me? Just because we're not a member of the EU doesn't mean we're not part of Europe.
Well, at least you have good tasteaftk2 said:
There are a couple of Aussie bands who have had a cult following overseas, especially England. I think it was when Icehouse had their last concert outside the Opera House, a lot of Brits came over to their surprise for the weekend then back to work. Over 24hrs flying each way.
We're still waiting down here for iTunes, damnit. Telstra, our biggest Telco, is ramping up its advertising for their WMA-based service, especially on 'cool' radio stations. I think there may be other services here by now.
http://bigpondmusic.com/
The terms for this and other WMA services are more restrictive than iTunes, so I think it's a case of the music companies favouring the WMA-based services now that their Mac-experiment proved successful. If they can have terms where people don't have the right to put their music on CDs or copy onto portable music players, why not? (Not quite that bad for bigpondmusic, barely).
The real game for Microsoft is Digital Rights Management, and the royalties therefrom, which goes far beyond mere music, and they intend to be quite ruthless in establishing a new monopoly in this area. This also ties into the whole Palladium thing, where developers will have to pay MS big money in future to certify their software "trustworthy", or it won't run alongside other "trusted" software or use their data (eg OpenOffice won't be able to open Word documents, you'll need MS mediaplayers to play sound and video, etc, even on other platforms).
This is also why I think Apple should accept Real's offer, whatever people may think of their spyware. We need more people using AAC, and any other remotely open standard, and if FairPlay is needed to shore up support for it as opposed to WMA, then Apple and whoever owns the license should oblige at a competitive price, as once Microsoft gets their stores up, there will be a WMA-based Microsoft store on every new PC. Same goes with competitors like Sony, even if they use competing formats, if they use FairPlay versus WMA DRM, so much the better.
iTunes could go the way of Netscape if they're not careful, and I don't think Jobs fully realises it. Having a headstart does not guarantee you the upper hand long term, and they don't even have that outside the US. Apple had a monopoly on the Desktop once, but their overpricing and refusal to license cost them that.
Concrete info on iTunes MS Canada
I did some investigating.
Dear Rodney:
Thank you for posting a question to the CMRRA web site
(http://www.cmrra.ca).
We are as frustrated as you with the fact that iTunes Music Store (IMS)
isn't yet available in Canada. We would be delighted to see them here.
We are presently in negotiations with Apple to license IMS for activity in
Canada, and we hope those negotiations lead us to an agreement soon.
However, the launch date for IMS is entirely in Apple's hands. As well as
completing their agreement with us, they must also make licensing
arrangements for the use of the recordings they will distribute, establish
their infrastructure and billing system for Canada and develop a marketing
plans for Canada. I have no doubt that Apple is capable of completing all
of these tasks, but they are all prerequisites to launching IMS in Canada.
You might do well to convey your interest in IMS to Apple, as I'm sure they
would be interested in knowing that there's real demand for their product
in this market. However, as I noted above, the timing and manner of the IMS
launch in this country is entirely in Apple's hands.
Yours truly,
David Basskin
President
CMRRA Ltd.
Toronto, Canada
E-mail: dbasskin@cmrra.ca
Phone: (416) 926-1966, ext. 222
Hi Rodney,
Thanks for your email.
Unfortunately, I can't give you a concrete timeline because it's my
understanding that the launches of Mac-compatible iTunes' and other U.S.
based companies (i.e. MusicNet, Napster) in Canada are taking longer than
expected because of their need to iron out logistics like G.S.T. and
exchange rates, etc.
I do know that iTunes has approached the publishers and they're currently in
final negotiations so we should expect news of their launch here in the near
future. For further information, you should contact the publishers'
association, CMRRA (www.cmrra.ca).
Regards,
Jennifer Hardy
Manager of Administration & Communications
Canadian Recording Industry Association
890 Yonge Street, Suite 1200
Toronto, ON M4W 3P4
Tel: (416) 967-7272 ext. 105
Fax: (416) 967-9415
jhardy@cria.ca
I did some investigating.
Dear Rodney:
Thank you for posting a question to the CMRRA web site
(http://www.cmrra.ca).
We are as frustrated as you with the fact that iTunes Music Store (IMS)
isn't yet available in Canada. We would be delighted to see them here.
We are presently in negotiations with Apple to license IMS for activity in
Canada, and we hope those negotiations lead us to an agreement soon.
However, the launch date for IMS is entirely in Apple's hands. As well as
completing their agreement with us, they must also make licensing
arrangements for the use of the recordings they will distribute, establish
their infrastructure and billing system for Canada and develop a marketing
plans for Canada. I have no doubt that Apple is capable of completing all
of these tasks, but they are all prerequisites to launching IMS in Canada.
You might do well to convey your interest in IMS to Apple, as I'm sure they
would be interested in knowing that there's real demand for their product
in this market. However, as I noted above, the timing and manner of the IMS
launch in this country is entirely in Apple's hands.
Yours truly,
David Basskin
President
CMRRA Ltd.
Toronto, Canada
E-mail: dbasskin@cmrra.ca
Phone: (416) 926-1966, ext. 222
Hi Rodney,
Thanks for your email.
Unfortunately, I can't give you a concrete timeline because it's my
understanding that the launches of Mac-compatible iTunes' and other U.S.
based companies (i.e. MusicNet, Napster) in Canada are taking longer than
expected because of their need to iron out logistics like G.S.T. and
exchange rates, etc.
I do know that iTunes has approached the publishers and they're currently in
final negotiations so we should expect news of their launch here in the near
future. For further information, you should contact the publishers'
association, CMRRA (www.cmrra.ca).
Regards,
Jennifer Hardy
Manager of Administration & Communications
Canadian Recording Industry Association
890 Yonge Street, Suite 1200
Toronto, ON M4W 3P4
Tel: (416) 967-7272 ext. 105
Fax: (416) 967-9415
jhardy@cria.ca
greg75 said:
Exactly...
I subscribed for the tryout period on emusic.com, and half of the albums I wanted to get were "not available outside the US due to licensing restriction". I'm not aware of licensing restrictions being imposed by anyone other than the record companies themselves.
How could anyone find a way to attribute music distribution issues to the EU is beyond me...
Anyway, this is good news, at least, they're saying something! I was starting to worry the silence meant there was no certainty it would even open at all
I only hope we get the same variety in the catalogue as the US store, at least. (Possibly even more varied by then!)
Zaty said:
Ok then, the solution is simple: abolish nations, discard national laws, close national parliaments, dissolve national hq of record companies as well as national labels, and have Steve Jobs as our one and only super euroman dictator, just so Apple can open the iTunes Music Store simulsupertaneously in all former-countries of the new European Nation!
Yeah!
I mean, it'd be surely worth it, right?
I only know it's really frustrating to be able to listen to previews and not being able to buy anything
Especially when it seems to be possible for other companies to launch their music download services.
Especially when it seems to be possible for other companies to launch their music download services.
Not too long ago, there was an experiment here in belgium. A music download store, with only a few (belgian) songs. Encoded in OGG Vorbis and MP3 (you could pick which one you wanted), it had no DRM, so you could do with it what you wanted. (It had a watermark though, so if it would end up on kazaa, they could track you down).
They wanted to see if it had success, and if so they would turn the experiment in a store. Well, it had success, but they stopped the experiment. Why? Because the music labels got greedy. They wanted more money, eventhough it is normal you give a discount to new music formats.
Example, when we went from tape to CD, the CD itself was allot more expensive so they reduced the price of the music license itself. Later on, you could make CDs cheaper, and increase the music license price again.
The music labels here didn't want to do the same for the online music downloads though. (Eventhough you have basically the same "setup" costs as you had with cd's).
I am betting that the same thing is happening with Apple in Europe, Canada, Australia, well the rest of the world. Music labels see the success in the US and they raised the price. Heck, they are already talking about increasing the price of a song to 3$ in the US.
I don't believe for a second that european/canadian/asian/australian laws are holding back the introduction of the music stores. I mean, if it was available in canada, mexico, australia, japan, but not in europe, then yes, it is probably because of european laws. But I seriously doubt that the entire world except for the US has laws that prevent the introduction of an online music store. No, it's just the typical greed of the music labels.
But Europe does make for an easy target. Heck, most local politicians blame everything on Europe when something goes wrong. Taxes? Oh that's because of Europe. New ****ed up laws? Yeah, Europe.. Your dog bit you in the ass? You guessed it.. Europe
They wanted to see if it had success, and if so they would turn the experiment in a store. Well, it had success, but they stopped the experiment. Why? Because the music labels got greedy. They wanted more money, eventhough it is normal you give a discount to new music formats.
Example, when we went from tape to CD, the CD itself was allot more expensive so they reduced the price of the music license itself. Later on, you could make CDs cheaper, and increase the music license price again.
The music labels here didn't want to do the same for the online music downloads though. (Eventhough you have basically the same "setup" costs as you had with cd's).
I am betting that the same thing is happening with Apple in Europe, Canada, Australia, well the rest of the world. Music labels see the success in the US and they raised the price. Heck, they are already talking about increasing the price of a song to 3$ in the US.
I don't believe for a second that european/canadian/asian/australian laws are holding back the introduction of the music stores. I mean, if it was available in canada, mexico, australia, japan, but not in europe, then yes, it is probably because of european laws. But I seriously doubt that the entire world except for the US has laws that prevent the introduction of an online music store. No, it's just the typical greed of the music labels.
But Europe does make for an easy target. Heck, most local politicians blame everything on Europe when something goes wrong. Taxes? Oh that's because of Europe. New ****ed up laws? Yeah, Europe.. Your dog bit you in the ass? You guessed it.. Europe
Vonnie said:(...)
But Europe does make for an easy target. Heck, most local politicians blame everything on Europe when something goes wrong. Taxes? Oh that's because of Europe. New ****ed up laws? Yeah, Europe.. Your dog bit you in the ass? You guessed it.. Europe
So true!
I agree with you, the music industry is being way to greedy in Europe. And if songs were to go up to $3, then iTMS would be heading straight down the drain...
UGH.
this licensing BS royally IRKS me. i'd buy the Popstar single from Sita (dutch popstar) for 99 cents here in the US, hell, maybe even $1.50, but because of all the corporations fighting over money, the artist gets screwed, i can't buy the single i'm actually willing to pay for, so i'll end up downloading the MP3 Scene release that sounds just as good, maybe ever so slightly better (IIRC, this release still uses the old but good 192CBR Stereo bitrate). i'm out of money to get the single off ebay or amazon, however i could prolly go without a 99 cent Wendy's Ceasar Side Salad and make a musical impulse purchase, but, i guess i can't.
this licensing BS royally IRKS me. i'd buy the Popstar single from Sita (dutch popstar) for 99 cents here in the US, hell, maybe even $1.50, but because of all the corporations fighting over money, the artist gets screwed, i can't buy the single i'm actually willing to pay for, so i'll end up downloading the MP3 Scene release that sounds just as good, maybe ever so slightly better (IIRC, this release still uses the old but good 192CBR Stereo bitrate). i'm out of money to get the single off ebay or amazon, however i could prolly go without a 99 cent Wendy's Ceasar Side Salad and make a musical impulse purchase, but, i guess i can't.
xy14 said:
Right, but that's an option who's days are numbered. At the Juno awards, the Heritage Minister promised the music industry that copyright laws would be changed, and, of course, that ruling is being appealed.
It's not like I'm having a hard time finding music, it's just that the itunes music store is one more option that I'd like to have available to me, and it's starting to look more and more like apple's responsible for holding up the show in Canada, waiting for all of Europe to get sorted out. (See rodnarms's post above.)
music downloading