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Notes from Apple's Meeting with Indies

Re: Re: I want to know the mechanics of this...

Originally posted by Toodles
The article does give the answer to this, but just to note - the same thing applies to all the major labels - Apple hasn't encoded any of the music.
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Aww...

I had this image of an email arriving at the big labels...

"Hi,

I'd like to buy some music.

I'd like one of *EVERYTHING* please.

That's great, thanks very much.

S.J. @ infinite.loop

🙂
 
Originally posted by yzedf
Still locks out the true independent bands (ie not signed with anyone). "iTMS partner..."



planeside is a good example. (friend of a friend)
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Yeah, but like Apple says they don't want to deal with 200 lawyers. If a band were to go through cdbaby they would probably get a much better deal than going to a label. It is part of the reinvention of music distribution. Hopefully there will be more winners than losers.
 
Great news

I have an album I'm putting on CDbaby soon too so its great to see that my music will available here too.
 
Quote from CDBaby!
Macs in 57 Apple retail stores are pre-loaded with playlists called, "Discover Indie Music". A chance at in-store play.
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That sounds very interesting. I remember rumors that Apple might start selling iTMS music at Apple Retail Stores. Kinda sounds like Apple's aiming to do that...
 
Originally posted by yzedf
Still locks out the true independent bands (ie not signed with anyone). "iTMS partner..."

planeside is a good example. (friend of a friend)
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This has already eben addressed somewhat, but CDBaby is not a company that signs bands. If you write music and want to distribute it, you can do it on CDBaby.

They've been really great so far, and I'm REALLY excited that my music might be getting posted on iTMS now as well. CDBaby is a great site, and having a direct link for artists like myself (who certainly are not signed) to the iTMS is wonderful news.

The only thing this means is that I, personally, can't contact Apple and work out a seperate deal. That's a good thing, becuause otherwise Apple would have millions of individual contracts, which would be a nightmare.
 
Any one else notice this...

"Every album needs to have a UPC Barcode! You have to use their special Music Store Encoder tool for Mac OS X which will be released in 90 days or so."

If I read this right, then Indie lables won't be able to add their music to the iTMS until after they have this software available 90 days from now. Also notice that the software is only available for OS X, which means that the Indie labels will have to buy a Mac if they don't already have one to upload their music. ;-)

Does this also mean that a Windows version of iTMS is more than 90 days away?!

iTMS has been amazingly successful thus far, and I believe Apple has moved rather quickly considering all that goes into an undertaking of this magnitude. However I hope Apple finds a way to speed this proccess up!

Here are a few things on my iTMS wishlist:
1. More music - Apple is adding to it at a very good pace, but the more they have, the more they can sell.
2. Windows Support - It's such a huge market, I'd hope this is Apple's number one priority!*
3. World Wide Support - This is a HUGE task in it's own right considering the differences in every countries own laws, monetary values and licensing restrictions. Good luck with this aspect Apple.
4. Complete dominance of the online music market! HAAAA HAA HA HA, Ha... ha. Um, anyway moving on...

*Sometimes I wonder if Apple might be dragging its feet over this. Instead of thinking that the Windows iTMS market is a huge opportunity to expand iTMS and infiltrate the Windows world, maybe they're thinking that iTMS is a strong enough selling point to help convince people in the Windows world to "switch" on over to the light side... just a thought. 😉
 
The stat I was interested in seeing (which wasn't in the article) is how many songs is Apple adding every week? How many songs are they up to now?

And I wish there was an easy way to see a list of just the new stuff added each week.

Personally, I'm happy with the service so far, and the addition of lots of smaller/indie labels is great news.
 
Originally posted by patmcfar8
Does this also mean that a Windows version of iTMS is more than 90 days away?!
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The Windows version of iTMS is months away. Apple has to write the code for an entire Windows version of iTunes.

We'll see Windows iTMS by year's end, but not any time this summer. Not just is there code to write, but the major five record labels haven't agreed to a Windows version of the music store, yet.
 
Originally posted by pyrotoaster
The Windows version of iTMS is months away. Apple has to write the code for an entire Windows version of iTunes.

We'll see Windows iTMS by year's end, but not any time this summer. Not just is there code to write, but the major five record labels haven't agreed to a Windows version of the music store, yet.
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Everybody seems to think that just because Apple posted its job listing for a Windows programmer for iTunes after the debut of the music store that they hadn't yet begun development of a Windows version. I highly doubt that Apple would be so stupid as to wait that long.

The reason the record companies went along with Apple's version is that it was only available to Apple computer users. I'm sure that if we were to see a copy of the contract, it would be clear that it is not Apple holding up the release of iTunes for Windows but the record companies.
 
Previews.

Are lower quality than the actual song.

There was a thread on Ars where we discussed this and someone pointed out the bitrates ARE different in the previews.
 
Originally posted by Ugg
Everybody seems to think that just because Apple posted its job listing for a Windows programmer for iTunes after the debut of the music store that they hadn't yet begun development of a Windows version. I highly doubt that Apple would be so stupid as to wait that long.

The reason the record companies went along with Apple's version is that it was only available to Apple computer users. I'm sure that if we were to see a copy of the contract, it would be clear that it is not Apple holding up the release of iTunes for Windows but the record companies.
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I'm not saying Apple waited until the iTMS came out for Mac to start developing it for Windows, but there's no way we're going to see a Windows version this summer (unless Steve's got yet another show stopper "one more thing" planned for the WWDC Keynote).

If Apple thought they could have the Windows version ready in July, they would've said something along the lines of "Windows version available within six months" back in April.

No, it'll probably be Sep/Oct/Nov before we see iTMS hit Windows. Of course, I'm just trying to be realistic. Better would be good.
 
Re: Any one else notice this...

Originally posted by patmcfar8
"Every album needs to have a UPC Barcode! You have to use their special Music Store Encoder tool for Mac OS X which will be released in 90 days or so."

If I read this right, then Indie lables won't be able to add their music to the iTMS until after they have this software available 90 days from now. Also notice that the software is only available for OS X, which means that the Indie labels will have to buy a Mac if they don't already have one to upload their music. ;-)
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According to CDBaby it sounds like they take care of both of these issues (UPC and encoding). If you are a CDBaby member they will sell you a bar code at $20 an album. Very cheap. It also sounds like since you will have to go through them they will be the onces encoding the music, not the artist. I can't totally confirm the encoding part of that statement but that's the impression I was getting.

So if I decided to form my own band based on the fact that I can play my belly as a drum on a day of feasting I could sell my CD on CDbaby (after I became a member) and buy a barcode for $20 and then get my CD on iTunes.
 
Not quite the same deal all arround

I have seen Albums on the iTMS that won't sell individual tracks. For instance, 100th Window, by Massive Attack. None of the tracks are available individually, even the ones under 7min.
 
D'oh!

They just yanked the story from CD Baby's webpage! Apparently Apple and its law teams have just brought the wrath of Jobs down on the poor guy that posted this info...

There goes his label's chances of being featured on iTMS. 😀

"It's never good to mess with karma!" - S.Jobs
 
Originally posted by TylerL
...interesting.
If labels do the actual encoding, and Apple does the 30 second previews, then Apple would be encoding previews from the compressed version.
...meaning that the previews DO sound worse than the actual songs like was mentioned awhile ago.
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Apple does not need to re-encode... They only need to clip the track into a 30 second soundbyte and adjust the volume at the beginning and end.

They are not re-ripping...
 
CD Baby

Man, I really hope CD Baby gets the iTMS angle working. I'm planning on selling a CD through them this summer. I would be so stoked if it was for sale through iTunes as well.
 
Re: D'oh!

Originally posted by Skandranon
They just yanked the story from CD Baby's webpage! Apparently Apple and its law teams have just brought the wrath of Jobs down on the poor guy that posted this info...

There goes his label's chances of being featured on iTMS. 😀

"It's never good to mess with karma!" - S.Jobs
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Its still there, I imagine its getting hit a little hard by all the Mac websites linking to it, just wait until Slashdot sniffs it then it'll know pain.

Anyone for some easy /. karma would setup a mirror now.
 
Can you actually get the information?? The page is still there but the detailed information seems to be all gone...
 
sorry - took the details down

It wasn't wrath or lawyers that asked me to pull it. It was a friend of mine that works there.

I sincerely didn't know yesterday's presentation was supposed to be confidential. In fact I thought it was like an indie-music press conference.

Nobody's mad, though. Honest mistake.

Sorry guys!

--
Derek Sivers, CD Baby
http://www.cdbaby.com
 
A couple random thoughts. First, anyone still have the original text of the article in their cache? 🙂 I seem to have come late to the party and now it's been pulled...

Interesting note about the specialized encoder being available in 90 days. Isn't that about when we expect Panther to come out (without being overly hopeful)? Coincidence or no?

Finally I'll just agree that this is excellent news -- the more music they have available the better. Maybe in a year's time they'll have a catalogue to rival Amazon's? One can hope! This must include getting not only as many indie labels on board as possible, but finishing as much of the major labels' catalogues as possible. Most of the stuff on my Amazon wishlist (over 120 CDs) is either obscure but on a major label, or on an indie. I've found very little of it on iTMS yet, and therefore have only bought one track so far. I can't wait til the day I have to hold myself back because so much stuff I really want is just waiting for me to download it!

Oh, and hopefully Favored Nations was in on this meeting yesterday too. I either own or want 95% of their current catalogue. 🙂
 
What I really like about the labels doing the encoding, not Apple... is it removes a bottleneck. Apple alone could only handle so much of that in a day. But now, signing up a new label means more encoding being done entirely ON TOP OF what was already going on. That means the rate of addition of tracks can increase greatly. I hope the bigger labels start moving faster though, filling in partial albums, etc.
 
"Apple takes the story down." I should've seen that coming. 😉

Anyway, if you didn't get a chance to read the info, but want to, some of the more interesting points are highlighted in a MacUnderground post from earlier today. Look for the post entitled "Indie records meet Reality Distortion Field..."

CDBaby: The info was great while it was there. Thank you.
 
Originally posted by nagromme
What I really like about the labels doing the encoding, not Apple... is it removes a bottleneck. Apple alone could only handle so much of that in a day. But now, signing up a new label means more encoding being done entirely ON TOP OF what was already going on. That means the rate of addition of tracks can increase greatly. I hope the bigger labels start moving faster though, filling in partial albums, etc.
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I think Apple had the labels do the rip, so that they would not be liable if the label thinks it was encoded wrong, and it would leave it up to the artist to make the best rip possible into AAC. Apple is still just the delivery not the maker, thats the labels job.

I'm sure that there are some tweaks that you can do to the music before the encoding make it sound better after the encoding, and Apple would/should not be trusted to make those.
 
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