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iTunes Russia on April 21, 2008?
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I think it's fairly certain that the 1.2 software (2.0) will include support for several more languages, including Russian. Those who have gotten their hands on the SDK indicate this.
Apple's support for Russian has been improving of late. In Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier, the Russian language interface was an entirely different distribution. Now it's included in 10.5, you only have to logout and login again to have a completely Russified interface if you want.
So if you don't want to jailbreak the phone-- can't imagine why not, though, as of right now it is a very safe procedure and makes a large number of very useful applications available-- I think you'll only have to wait a few months before you have real, official Russian support.
As for iTunes I have to agree-- I don't see it being popular in Russia or the CIS in the short term, as there are simply too many grey market opportunities easily available.
I would take exception to the "professional quality" dubs, though-- a lot of them are of very, very questionable quality. Yes, there are shakycams and screeners mixed in, along with some higher quality works, but a lot of the translations themselves are fairly poor, and many are simply a single Russian male voice speaking lines in a monotone and struggling to keep up with the pace of delivering everybody's lines.
Myself, anyway, I prefer subtitles. I want to hear movies in the original language, whether that's English, Russian, French or whatever-- and then have subtitles to help with comprehension, but I realize that isn't everyone's preference.
I think it's fairly certain that the 1.2 software (2.0) will include support for several more languages, including Russian. Those who have gotten their hands on the SDK indicate this.
Apple's support for Russian has been improving of late. In Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier, the Russian language interface was an entirely different distribution. Now it's included in 10.5, you only have to logout and login again to have a completely Russified interface if you want.
So if you don't want to jailbreak the phone-- can't imagine why not, though, as of right now it is a very safe procedure and makes a large number of very useful applications available-- I think you'll only have to wait a few months before you have real, official Russian support.
As for iTunes I have to agree-- I don't see it being popular in Russia or the CIS in the short term, as there are simply too many grey market opportunities easily available.
I would take exception to the "professional quality" dubs, though-- a lot of them are of very, very questionable quality. Yes, there are shakycams and screeners mixed in, along with some higher quality works, but a lot of the translations themselves are fairly poor, and many are simply a single Russian male voice speaking lines in a monotone and struggling to keep up with the pace of delivering everybody's lines.
Myself, anyway, I prefer subtitles. I want to hear movies in the original language, whether that's English, Russian, French or whatever-- and then have subtitles to help with comprehension, but I realize that isn't everyone's preference.
Not Free
The issue regarding those countries is not free sites. It is sites like AllofMP3 that sell content for extremely small amounts, even though the provenance of the content they sell is, shall we say, debatable.
The issue regarding those countries is not free sites. It is sites like AllofMP3 that sell content for extremely small amounts, even though the provenance of the content they sell is, shall we say, debatable.
The provenance of the content on Allofmp3 is impeccable. Legally bought genuine released CDs ripped at a rate of your choosing. There may be the odd bootleg there, too. I did not look.
However, the copyright laws in Russia are open to interpretation, which means the royalties paid for downloaded music from these sorts of sites are a fraction of those in other countries. None of these meagre payments ever get back to the artists since the artists representatives will not accept the payment taken by the Russian equivalent of the RIAA/STEMRA/BIEM/BPI etc.
However, the copyright laws in Russia are open to interpretation, which means the royalties paid for downloaded music from these sorts of sites are a fraction of those in other countries. None of these meagre payments ever get back to the artists since the artists representatives will not accept the payment taken by the Russian equivalent of the RIAA/STEMRA/BIEM/BPI etc.
Hosted in Holland/Netherlands also registered by Private Individual. Not apple but there are rumors every where about the iTMS coming to Russia and the CIS. Then again the support info is support@apple.ru so it could be them I'm not sure to be honest
Legal provenance
I mean the legal, rather than the technical provenance.
The problem with the Russian equivalent of the RIAA is that, unlike the RIAA which is an association formed by the companies who hold the rights the RIAA manages and defends, the body in Russia, which is ROMS, is a holdover from when the Soviet government held all the rights one could possibly have within the territory of the Soviet Union, and the government itself approved all foreign materials that were allowed into the state.
In other words, content was either created within the SU, or explicitly allowed in by the SU. In the SU's economy nearly all art and music was created by people in the employ of the government itself-- so the government held all such rights.
Fast forward to today, where shops on the street have CDs that themselves are illegal copies. There's no reason to believe AllofMP3 buys its CDs from anywhere else, why would they? Even if they did buy them legitimately from, say, Amazon.com, that gives them no rights for distribution or broadcast.
They get their rights to sell from a *broadcast* license from ROMS. ROMS, that used to hold the rights to all content created by the Soviet state or explicltly imported by the Soviet state, but now has no relationship whatsoever with any of the artists or publishers of this new material that is available on the Internet or in kiosks everywhere in Russia or any former Soviet country.
So ROMS reinvented itself as an RIAA type membership organization, inviting artists to come and join and take their slice of the miniscule revenue AllofMP3 pays to ROMS. (It's worth noting that for recordings, the RIAA does not do what ROMS does. What ROMS wants to do for recordings is more similar to what ASCAP does for performance rights of lyrics.)
Thing is, there is no contract or treaty that compels those artists and publishers to join ROMS in order to be compensated, and no contract or treaty that explicitly permits ROMS to redistribute rights they don't have.
Essentially the way ROMS and AllofMP3 operate is entirely legal within the framework of Russia' copyright laws as written. Where they are incompatible is with international copyright treaties, which Russia will have to sign on to to join WTO. That's where the rubber meets the road.
ROMS and AllofMP3 simply state that since they operate in Russia under Russian law everybody else can go take a pill.
The RIAA, as evil as it is, simply replies that having a sovereign state may grant you the right to set up your laws the way you see fit, but when it comes time to getting fair trade with other nations there has to be a set of common rules or else there is no fair trade.
Bottom line: you can't sell stuff you don't own by saying you got permission from someone else, who also doesn't own it.
I mean the legal, rather than the technical provenance.
The problem with the Russian equivalent of the RIAA is that, unlike the RIAA which is an association formed by the companies who hold the rights the RIAA manages and defends, the body in Russia, which is ROMS, is a holdover from when the Soviet government held all the rights one could possibly have within the territory of the Soviet Union, and the government itself approved all foreign materials that were allowed into the state.
In other words, content was either created within the SU, or explicitly allowed in by the SU. In the SU's economy nearly all art and music was created by people in the employ of the government itself-- so the government held all such rights.
Fast forward to today, where shops on the street have CDs that themselves are illegal copies. There's no reason to believe AllofMP3 buys its CDs from anywhere else, why would they? Even if they did buy them legitimately from, say, Amazon.com, that gives them no rights for distribution or broadcast.
They get their rights to sell from a *broadcast* license from ROMS. ROMS, that used to hold the rights to all content created by the Soviet state or explicltly imported by the Soviet state, but now has no relationship whatsoever with any of the artists or publishers of this new material that is available on the Internet or in kiosks everywhere in Russia or any former Soviet country.
So ROMS reinvented itself as an RIAA type membership organization, inviting artists to come and join and take their slice of the miniscule revenue AllofMP3 pays to ROMS. (It's worth noting that for recordings, the RIAA does not do what ROMS does. What ROMS wants to do for recordings is more similar to what ASCAP does for performance rights of lyrics.)
Thing is, there is no contract or treaty that compels those artists and publishers to join ROMS in order to be compensated, and no contract or treaty that explicitly permits ROMS to redistribute rights they don't have.
Essentially the way ROMS and AllofMP3 operate is entirely legal within the framework of Russia' copyright laws as written. Where they are incompatible is with international copyright treaties, which Russia will have to sign on to to join WTO. That's where the rubber meets the road.
ROMS and AllofMP3 simply state that since they operate in Russia under Russian law everybody else can go take a pill.
The RIAA, as evil as it is, simply replies that having a sovereign state may grant you the right to set up your laws the way you see fit, but when it comes time to getting fair trade with other nations there has to be a set of common rules or else there is no fair trade.
Bottom line: you can't sell stuff you don't own by saying you got permission from someone else, who also doesn't own it.
Joining the WTO may not have an immediate effect. Ukraine has done this recently and yet sites like this exist:
http://www.mp3.ua/copyrights.aspx
the IP was traced to Russia, but since the administrative contact addresses are in Ukraine, they can presumably be shut down by the Ukrainian authorities and yet all that has happened is that their registration has been withdrawn. It has not apparently hampered the ability of mp3.ua to continue trading.
http://www.mp3.ua/copyrights.aspx
the IP was traced to Russia, but since the administrative contact addresses are in Ukraine, they can presumably be shut down by the Ukrainian authorities and yet all that has happened is that their registration has been withdrawn. It has not apparently hampered the ability of mp3.ua to continue trading.