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Matador Records?

Worldwide Service

According to this Le Monde Article, the service should launch in early May in France:

"Ce service, qui commencera à fonctionner début mai"
Translation: "This service, qhich will begin functioning at the beginning of May"

Folks, I don't think Apple is ignoring the international community at all, I think it just comes down to legal, implementation, and priorities. I'm in France myself, and it just takes time...

Look how we now get localized OSes at the same release date as the US! What an improvement over the past!!
 
Oh yes, I'm sure Apple wants to cut off the rest of the world and make less money. There are contracts they have to abide by and international laws and exchange rates they need to take into consideration, which all together make this service impossible to implement outside of the US at this time. I don't claim to know the details, but I don't think they want to cut off the rest of the world, I'm thinking they're forced to for the time being. Just keep sending in the feedback, and see what happens.
 
Re: Worldwide Service

Originally posted by reedm007
the service should launch in early May in France:
Click to expand...

Steve at the opening presentation on Monday could have said something like - "no international service yet, sorry, but we are committed to rolling it out internationally, and we are working on it". And could have given some predictive dates (I know apple doesn't do this normally).

Some sort of statement would have sufficed. But they leave us up in the air. Based upon their treatment of international users, people (US?) wonder why we are getting bitter and twisted!
 
This is good because I spent 10 minutes trying to find a song that I wanted buy (ended up buy a song that I already own to compare it to my mp3 (from the CD that I own)). I'm also hoping for more complete set of an artist or groups work.

I think Apple Music is off to a great start. I hope they follow through and add next to everything. And, why not?
 
Re: Re: Worldwide Service

Originally posted by Stella
Steve at the opening presentation on Monday could have said something like - "no international service yet, sorry, but we are committed to rolling it out internationally, and we are working on it". And could have given some predictive dates (I know apple doesn't do this normally).

Some sort of statement would have sufficed. But they leave us up in the air. Based upon their treatment of international users, people (US?) wonder why we are getting bitter and twisted!
Click to expand...

But they can't speculate on things that aren't cold hard facts. This is a publicly held company with shareholders, publicly traded on a stock floor. If the company - and it doesn't matter which company - makes a claim that they're new product will go worldwide on day X, then turns around and dumps it's engagement in the stocks the day before X without delivering the product on said date X, then they've just committed securities fraud. And the SEC would like to have a little chat with them. That's why Apple, and most other public companies have a "don't comment on rumors/speculations" policy.
Steve can't say that it will go international May 5 (or whatever) - because if he does, and there's an unseen glitch and it doesn't roll until May 6, he's going to have a whole lot of angry shareholders to answer to, not to mention the hoards of upset international buyers such as our friends here across the pond. This is sticky, legal, nasty stuff.

They'd really like your money. Really.

And the sherlock thing is a combination of the availability of the SDK and content providers, often having censorship issues with multiple different governments in such a small area. It wouldn't be worth the effort for Apple to make (for instance) a traffic report channel for London, if the Labor Party decided to not allow public dissemination of the information about traffic flow. Purely an example - I have no real idea of what goes on as far as censorship/content provision.

And I don't have a clue about the iphoto thing either, but it may have something to do with a faliure to procure a commercial printing service in the EU or eastern hemisphere that could economically and timely deliver the books to the masses that ordered them. We are talking about the bound books, right? If not, please PM and explain...

*edited for spelling
 
Apple clearly wants to make this international; the service could actually make more money internationally than in the US, as it will be a useful source of music from artists not from the region. However, it cannot happen as soon as May, for two reasons:

1. Moving this to another country requires a mountain of legal work for each label, each country (except the EU which is treated collectively), and in many cases, specific artists/albums. I would guess that it would take a year to draw up all of the contracts for Europe alone.

2. Apple will no doubt want to add artists specific to the region and its language. This will also take time, and more contracts.

Patience is in order. They want to make money, so they will move as fast as possible on this. The same applies to independant labels.

elo
 
Getting on board with the smaller labels is something that Apple will do as quickly as they can. The local garage bands as well as the up-and-comers have some of the most loyal followers who will very likely buy music online. Getting the big 5 first was necessary for Apple to legitimize the service for the mainstream.
 
agreed, and they're showing their interest in it by commenting on indies already. This is day 3 of the service. That's pretty good, no matter what kind of service you're offering.
*edited for spelling - I can't seem to tonight.
 
I hope none of us are shy with our requests. Although I am guilty of us. I hope they are logging search requests (anonymously of course) that are coming up empty.

Its odd that Matador is mentioned... they are one of the main reasons to subscribe to eMusic... a majority of the better stuff there is Matador. Wonder what will happen to eMusic if they go to apple music store (which needs a name as short as apple store... iTunes Store?)
 
on Tool: I have no doubt Tool is actually not interested in having their albums piecemealed and that's why they're not on board. They are artistic almost to a fault, and their albums tend to be sort of organically symbiotic. Plus their packaging is above and beyond, and their albums sell cheap ($13 bucks for the Mechwarrior II-like anticipated Lateralus at the time of release), probably cheaper than they would go for @ iTMS with the current pricing scheme.

on indie lables: As far as I can tell, Apple only came to terms with the big 5 and many standard hold out artists not that long ago. It takes a lot of work to put 200,000 songs online -- remember, they have to not only categorize and encode, but also select a good 30 sec clip.

on international access: I think Jobs has decided not to take money from you limey/froggie/kiwi/krauts just to stick it to the rest of the world due to his famously Pat Buchannan-like yank-centric political points of view (Disclaimer: not actually representative of anyone's political point of view...that I know of). 🙄 OK, in all seriousness I'm sure they will give an international offering absolutely as soon as their contracts/localization efforts allow.

I really think that everyone should realize that Apple seems to have tried to get this to the market absolutely ASAP, and though the technology is super-sweet, as they've been working on that for a long time obviously, there is still a lot of work to be done on the content and availability side, which theoretically they might have been able to do before the release, but I believe that would mean we would still be waiting.

As far as Madonna goes: who really gives a crap? I mean really? Were there a lot of people going "Yes! I can finally get that Madonna song I can never find!"? I don't think so. Same with the Stones and Beatles. Not having them is certainly a detriment, but considering most people have what they want from them on CD already, it's not as bad as people make it sound.
 
good to hear.

the independent labels have been the innovators for a long time now and i would think apple would want to position themselves as friends to this community and not ignore them.
 
Could apple be waiting for more songs first?

Steve may have a reason for keeping the international market out of this for awhile. For starters, a windoze version needs to come out to ensure better compatibility. Next, as mentioned above, the contracts and such that would have to go through as well. But I bet Apple could be waiting to have a better catalogue to show to the world, along with artists unique to each country. If Steve plays his cards right, he will practically have the online music industry in his hands.

Also as noted above, this service has been up a total of 2 days......we can't expect every song we want to be put on instantly....as Steve said in the CNN interview: "There are only so many hours".

After Steve has satisfied his main suppliers, he can go for the little fish.
 
I'm jumping in a little late here but this is great (potential) news! I would love to see some more indie/hard to find stuff in the iTunes store. I browsed around yesterday for a while and couldn't find a single thing I was into, seriously. I think the most "out there" thing I could find was Modest Mouse which is pretty much bordering on main stream now. I don't listen to pop music or the radio or watch MTV, but I also HATE the annoyances of CDs and if I had a place to pick up my music digitally I'd be all over it. I really hope this starts to happen!
 
Originally posted by BaghdadBob
As far as Madonna goes: who really gives a crap? I mean really? Were there a lot of people going "Yes! I can finally get that Madonna song I can never find!"?
Click to expand...

Yeah, but maybe I want the remix that I wouldn't pay $5 to get on a CD Single, but would gladly pay just $1 for.
 
question for anyone:
can anyone get a .Mac account, regardless of whether they are in the US or not?
i ask because it seems like that is the main route for being able to buy anything through the Apple Store.
And, if anyone, regardless of being stateside or somewhere in the rest of the world, can get a .Mac account, I'd hope that Apple would be able to easily explain why there is a delay in the international portion (huge! portion) of the pie.

I'd also recommend on someone starting a petition ( a thread) on Apple's discussion boards just so that Apple's eyes can certainly see there is interest. And, contact mac centric sites to let them know that another petition is online. At the very least, an explaination for the lack of a global rollout for OSX centric services is needed and one should be made.

Furthermore, do contact your favorite Indy labels and tell them you want an online option for getting your singles. Yes buying directly from the label is still an option; but, getting those overlooked tracks that were on a seven inch might not be a priority. Well, now you can implore them that an extra outlet can be had in the iTunes store.

As an anecdote, I recall looking around for way too long for some Indy singles and, after too long, finally finding them. The mass inclusion of Indy labels will truly make this Internet delivery system a boon for people who like obscure stuff, are subject to impulse purchasing and just want a track or two. (and who don't want to chance that someone with your kooky interests is "sharing" what you are looking for has a copy "just for you".)
What are you waiting for? Go!
 
I am totally in favour of anything that will speed up the introduction of the Music Store outside of the US. I signed the online petition when it was first set up.

However, I have now seen a few examples that show Apple is working on this. There is the French article that says it will be launched in May and the General Manager of Apple UK was on the radio here yesterday talking about it (see this thread )

So lets stop whinging about it and wait and see what happens. It *will* come I'm sure. This has just been the usual story of Apple not telling us very much, and us getting upset before we know the full story.

With regard to indie labels and bands not yet on the store, I think they'll all come in time. If this is the success that Apple hopes it will be (sales figures suggest it is already), then everyone will want to be a part of it and then Apple will have the upper hand in negotiations rather than the other way around. Prices may even drop, or more likely Apple will get a bigger share. Thats my guess anyway.

Cheers,
Dobbin
 
Originally posted by lmalave
Yeah, but maybe I want the remix that I wouldn't pay $5 to get on a CD Single, but would gladly pay just $1 for.
Click to expand...

Right, but the extent to which this hurts the service is overrated.

If anything, I'm going to say the lack of indies accounts for more financial loss than the lack of Stones, Beatles, and Madonna combined, because this is the music many are looking for and can't yet find, where fans of the latter largely own what they want because it's so easy to find and has been around for so long.
 
I'm glad indies like Matador have taken notice...Some of my fav bands of the last few years are on their label...well in the usa anyway, most are on different labels here. I'd love to see Jon Spencer, B&S and Interpol out on AIMS. I'd also like to see sympathy for the music industy label as well. I'm not really suprised to see the beatles missing....they never pop up on complation cds or whatever...I guess they either only want their songs to be realesed as whole albums or they are hard to deal with as they know they are the biggest band in the world and can ask whatever terms they want. As an idea, why dont the just buy Apple Records instead of universal....perfect name and removes the legal issues...plus they could premote a produce your own songs with logic/iTrax or whatever thing, upload to your .mac account and we will sell through pple records/AIMS with the users getting a small %age of each song sold...if apple doesnt sell many anyway it doesn't hurt them as they have the space already as it'd be on the .mac servers or whatever and are getting .mac revenues from each person that posts songs...ok I'm daydreaming but it would be cool.
 
Apple aquires Apple records...

Actually, that's a great idea. That would allow bands to deal more directly with iTMS to publish their music, where if Apple did that now it could be considered breach of contract because they would be acting sort of like a record label....hmmm...how much could Apple record be worth, anyway?

They'd still have to deal with consent issues with the Beatles themselves though.
 
No Beatles or Zepplin?!?!?!

... you'll never see them. Their catalogs are worth fortunes. Remember the "event" when the first Beatles albums were available on CD? About 6-8 years after most other bands had been cut to CD.

Stu
 
Re: No Beatles or Zepplin?!?!?!

If music companies delay in putting Beatles and other such music on music services like Apple, then they are only shotting themselves in the foot. People will continue to download these tracks off limewire etc, and thus no revenue to the relevent music companies. (Escpecially when all they want is their favourite tracks and not the entire album).

They have only themselves to blame. Of course they will continue to bitch and moan about how privacy is bankrupting them, without doing anything themselves - constructively - apart from sueing anything that remotely looks like a threat to them.

Originally pos
ted by stuartmingay
... you'll never see them. Their catalogs are worth fortunes. Remember the "event" when the first Beatles albums were available on CD? About 6-8 years after most other bands had been cut to CD.

Stu
Click to expand...
 
ok everyone's basically already said this but...

Matador's the bomb! I would spend sh**loads of money on the music store if this pans out.

Seriously, this is the kind of stuff that's hard to find on Kazaa and at the big retail stores. I often end up ordering this stuff on Amazon and then have to wait 1-2 weeks for it.

Get em on board, Apple, and take my money!
 
Updated every day... Not! (so far)

Steve said there is going to be music updated everyday. I have not seen any evidence of that (yet). At least not in the Electronic section.
Has it updated anywhere else?
 
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