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Euro iTunes Store Delayed
pnjman writes "Due to the record labels being unable to agree licencing issues, the European iTunes music store has been put back until at least next year."
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The inability of the record monopolies to embrace the internet strikes again!
Dammit, rats, shit, sonovabitch, crap. That sucks but I can imagine what kind of legal hell Apple must be sifting through in order to sort it out.
--Residential Interior Design
here's the article:
Apple plan to roll out Net music in Europe delayed
By Charles Arthur, Technology Editor
25 June 2003
Attempts by Apple Computer to launch a European version of its online "Music Store", where people can download individual songs, has been held up until next year by disputes between record companies and their artists over licensing.
The delay could mean more problems for the record companies, which face a growing tide of online piracy with the increase in high-speed "broadband" connections in Europe, and frustration for Apple, which has seen 5 million tracks sold at 99 cents each through its US-only online "iTunes Music Store" since its launch eight weeks ago.
In Europe, though, different artists can have different arrangements in each country over how much they are paid for a digital download - if such clauses are in their contract at all. That has caused headaches for Apple, which wants to take advantage of its momentum in the US to roll the program out in the rest of the world.
Pascal Cagni, vice-president of Apple's European operations, said yesterday: "In Europe the legal environment [for licensing songs for download] is more complicated than in the US, so the one-price-fits-all system that the US uses is difficult to do here. And the major labels themselves haven't sorted out their rights."
Mr Cagni declined to put a date on the timing of the launch, but insisted it would not be ready by September, contrary to some reports. One music industry source said yesterday: "I don't suspect Apple will have this in Europe until next year."
Although the five major record labels have signed internet download deals with a British company, OD2 (Online Digital Distribution) of Bristol, the number of tracks sold is not believed to approach that achieved by Apple's online store.
Both, however, are dwarfed by the number of illicit downloads carried out every day through "peer-to-peer" networks that are increasingly popular with people disenchanted with the price of CDs. Millions of tracks change hands every day through those networks, enabled by broadband connections, to the frustration of the record companies.
However, despite only being accessible to those using the company's newest operating system, Apple's iTunes Music Store has been a hit in the US. The company notes that its statistics suggest that albums are still popular: more than 46 per cent of the songs have been purchased as albums, and more than 80 per cent of the 200,000-plus songs available on the online store have been purchased at least once.
The key to its appeal seems to be simplicity. The "store" is accessed through a simple web browser-like interface to buy individual tracks for 99 cents or entire albums for $9.99, and allows people to "burn" their music on to a CD that will play normally in a car or hi-fi.
By contrast, OD2 - which has a comparable number of tracks for sale - only allows some tracks to be burned on to CD, and requires a subscription; once that expires, the downloaded tracks will not play. OD2 was not able to give a figure for the number of downloads from its system in the past eight weeks.
"The iTunes Music Store is changing the way people buy music," said Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, on Monday. The company is now focusing on developing a version that will be able to draw users of the more widely used Windows operating system: that is expected by the end of the year.
Now with that said I wonder what specifically the artists have against this? Anyone do further research than myself?
What? So â.99 per song doesn't cut it?
The article doesn't know when it's going to happen.
After Spetmeber is the msot definite term used.
It "MAY" be sometime next year.
Lot different than "at least next year." Makes it sound lik it's two years away or something.
Now that Jobs scared the competition into action, he's got to keep the machine growing. International iTunes store access -- and Windows access -- are critical to maintain the early victory.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of neurons.
It's too bad that licensing has been so difficult for Apple in Europe. It seems like this will be a roadblock for any kind of digital content distribution service.
If you accept flat-rate, simple click-and-download content distribution as the future, then it is obviously necessary to re-think the "every little European country is licensed differently" international licensing model.
Otherwise, imagine some of the weirdness you could pull off... imagine remotely accessing a machine in Finland, using that machine to download from Apple's store at a cheaper rate than your home country, and then downloading from the Finland machine to yours. I'm not familiar with the security measures that might combat this, but I imagine any that are in place could probably be circumvented.
Probably not a priority - it took FOREVER to get a Canadian Apple Store.
Random is the New Order.
Geez, we should mod the story post as Troll.
from the there-is-no-good-music-in-europe-anyway dept.
The problem is not that European music cannot be sold in iTunes Music Shop, the problem is that the Europeans cannot buy anything in it (regardless the country of origin). Actually, iTunes MS is full of European music (at least if you count Britons as Europeans, which is sometimes a matter of debate).
Slashdot is too Euro-centric.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
"imagine remotely accessing a machine in Finland, using that machine to download from Apple's store at a cheaper rate than your home country, and then downloading from the Finland machine to yours. "
This would probably be countered the same way that it is being handled now to prevent people from buying music this way from Finland by routing through a US American server--by checking the credit card address.
Thus, if your credit card has a home address in Estonia (and a Credit Card *is* required to use the store), then you won't be able to use the iTunes store through Finland after Finland is included in the plan or through the United States today.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
...record labels being unable to agree...
Imagine that. I mean who would have thought the record labels, of all people, would have a problem with being unable to agree?
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
This is blatant hyperbole.
Windows access is relatively critical, but only from the perspective of competing with whatever MS manages to cobbel together that actually has a chance of competing (I haven't seen anything yet) and will likely have very little to do with the long term life-and-death of the project as it stands now (the record companies seem happy with the deal, and so long as they have the big-5 and the big-5 remain profitable, Apple will probably not have to float the store).
International access, on the other hand, is in no-way critical to whether the project succeeds or whether Apple succeeds. The problems are the laws in other countries which are not conducive to this kind of pricing scheme, as well as the international contracts and licensing issues surrounding distribution of media.
If Apple and the big-5 are having trouble with it, so will anyone else who wants to expand across country boundaries.
Thus, the two *most* critical issues for the iTunesMusicStore, at this stage, are:
1) Getting more labels aboard (they seem to be doing an admirable job at getting this set up).
2) Getting iTunes ported to Windows (once again).
These would be the "logical next steps" to remain in front of the pack. International access is more of a nicety that is not overly critical for their success (though I'm sure they want to do it as quickly as possible--more profits are never a bad thing).
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
It's pretty obvious don't you think? M$ marketoid drones must have flooded those executive meetings recommending the corporate managers to wait for WMP DRM "It'll-be-available-really-soon". The temptation to license 3 copies, one for the car, one for the sitting-room and one for the portable media whatnot is too compelling. Otherwise why did those "artists" complain that their concepts' complexity was crippled by one-song downloads? (hypocrites... radio pass has already done this; else why don't we hear 15+min tunes more often?) That was meant to be part of a bullet list in a powerpoint presentation... Sheesh... this damn greed is literally changing my musical tastes; once I used to dig Metallica and HM (say, at the times of Justice for All) but now I'm all into electronica subculture... there's less MTV colonization!
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
offer one euro downloads, isn't this why they (europe) went to one currency? Let the record companies figure out how to divide their 60% that they get. Seems easy enough for me.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
Apple would do well to look at rolling out iTMS in individual countries rather than attempt to do this as a bloc. Other international retailers, such as Amazon (which has amazon.co.uk and amazon.de) have already learnt this lesson, and built successfully upon it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This just goes to show how deluded is the common idea that "Cyberspace" is a real place, above and separate from the real world, immune to national boundaries, laws and so forth. The internet might provide an efficient and (apparently) "free" means of communication between people in different nations, but if enterprises are going to do business "on" the internet then they have to play within the various frameworks of the existing nation states that us 6 billion people have formed ourselves into. Oh, and PS - the Apple story is still annoying, cos at 0.99 euro's per track I'd buy it (and I *don't* indulge in P2P file trading anyway...)
The record labels should take whatever they can get. Basically, they have two options: (1) Get some money when people legally download songs. -or - (2) Get no money when people download songs illegally with p2p clients. The record companies are getting greedy; they should take what they can get and be happy!
You, sir, are ignorant.
"they're loosing money here all this time the iTunes store isn't running in Europe. "
Hardly. They aren't making as much as they could, but they are not "losing money" because they are not in Europe.
"I think they'll have a lot to explain to shareholders, eg. 'Why didn't you pursue this business model as soon as it showed it's potential?'."
Not Apple's problem--there are laws and licensing issues involved that they are attempting to negotiate their way through. These are a more major issue than was first anticipated. Period. End of discussion.
If they are turning a profit with it now and/or will turn a profit once the Windows version comes out, why on earth would they need to justify that they haven't managed to work out licensing with Europe just yet?
They aren't exactly trying to explain to the teacher why they haven't gotten their homework in on time.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Anyone heard anything about Canada or Japan? I'm starting to get impatient...
Norway has refused Poland's request for entry into the EU. until they upgrade all their air conditioners to be Energy Star Compliant.
the failure of the music business to get a grip on new models of doing business is, again, shocking. i'm having a hard time coping with it! (a) for one, the record companies themselves have made these completely different contracts by country. in order to maximize profits they have agreed on different pricing per country. i understand that there are legal differences, and that from a legal point of view the contracts are difficult and different also but anyways. i feel that the record companies should make a move towards apple (and maybe others as well) to set this up. (b) the prices of CD's is very high here in Europe. partly that is because of higher taxes, but the biggest cut still goes to the record companies. this encourages p2p filetrading as all internet-literate people *know* how much a CD is in the US. (c) the failure to give the rest of the world the same access to (legal) onlne music *will* hurt the music industry. because of all the different legal systems it is nearly impossible to go after the big traders, unlike the RIAA in the US. the situation in Est-European countries is even more difficult! my guess is that apple would do wise to crack the European market one-by-one and force the record companies to come up with a solution on their end (by forcing 1 pricing schema!!!). start with the UK and Germany (big markets and easier law). Move on to the other ones, eg. the countries where apple stores are in place so you are a legal entity already. ....
ITMS does not know where I live and I have credit cards on both continents.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
One thing that kind of piss me off is that Apple has decided that the whole European Union will get one big European Music Store. That really sucks because that mean that either the store will be flooded by German or French-singing artists that rest of Europe don't have any clue who the hell they are, or that these artists who happen to sing in their own language get sacked from the store. Now as a Swedish person I'd like to have some Swedish Hip Hop in the store, but since Swedish Hip Hop isn't selling outside of Sweden -- I doubt that they would even think about. This is kind of stupid in my opinion, and I would like to see a Music Store per country instead. To not only launch it faster, but to please the consumers more specifically in each country.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
How many more boats do record labels have to miss? Here you have a service people people use and like and they're likely quibbling about a few cents.
Yahoo! music tunes into Europe
Wednesday, June 25, 2003 Posted: 5:14 AM EDT (0914 GMT)
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- U.S. Internet media company Yahoo Inc. said it is debuting its popular music service Launch in Europe, its first crack at the region's burgeoning online music market.
Launch Music carries free and subscription-based programming ranging from music videos to artist interviews to streaming music, which it is bringing to Europe as high-speed broadband Internet usage reaches mass market levels.
Yahoo does not sell music downloads in North America, but the company said it would consider launching such features in the United States and abroad in the future with Launch's user base of monthly visitors topping 9 million.
"What we will be doing is building this service to take Launch global, and then we'll look at the opportunities," David Goldberg, vice president and general manager for Launch Music on Yahoo, told Reuters on Wednesday.
Launch will be a primarily advertiser-supported Web site in Europe, as it is in North America.
Goldberg said Launch will likely team up with UK music site Dotmusic, which is owned by BT Group, as part of its newly struck alliance to bring entertainment content to BT OpenWorld broadband subscribers.
Yahoo has been exporting select features of its North American service to its European operation in an effort to boost advertising and subscription revenues overseas.
Earlier this month, Yahoo launched a free online dating service in Europe, but will change to a monthly subscription service as soon as this autumn.
Yahoo has been noticeably quiet in Europe on the music front as the market has been slower to take off here.
The major music labels have been more selective in releasing music to song download sites, offering their artists' music to a handful of Europe's largest Internet service providers and Web portals including Tiscali and Microsoft's MSN.
==== Yeah, I know, it's not the same, but still...
And you, madam, are very ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.
Reading through the comments i find lots of statements along the line of "The music industry again doesn't get it" or so, but few seem to realize what all this is really about.
As far as I understand it, it's not only the greedy music managers that are keeping the iTMS Europe from opening. It's basically a structural difference between (continental) European author's rights and copyright in the USA.
The difference is quite obvious. If you have the right to copy some book, or painting, or piece of music or whatever, you can simply give it away. It's not bound to some special person. If I buy the copyright of some work of art it's as good as if I were the artist myself (at least such contracts are possible under the copyright sort of law).
In the concept of author's right, you can't sell any rights. You can allow someone to publish your work, or copy it, or whatever you could think of, but you always keep your author's right, because you are the author, and there is no amount of money in the world that could make someone else the author.
As a consequence this means that, when a new method of publishing emerges (like the internet), the record company has to come back to the artist and ask him, if he would kindly allow the use of this new method now, too - simply because "the internet" isn't mentioned in the old contracts and the company never had the possibility to simply buy "all rights". (It should be possible to have a contract that allows all forms of publishing, but I think that is pretty unusal).
So, I think the managers do know by now that there's a lot of money to make with the iTMS, and they'd be more than happy to make it possible, but the real problem is to get thousands of artists to sign new contracts.
But, then again, im am (happy) not (to be) a lawyer, and I could be wrong.
Would it not be better to combine all the stores into one huge store and so expose these smaller artists to a much wider audience rather than the big 5 labels just pushing the latest teen act?
Netflix seemed to open a can of worms when they got a patent for selling DVDs online in a subscription basis, etc. Why can't Apple get a similar patent like that? Are they not the first to sell songs for 99 cents without a subscription? I think if done right this would limit the competition in what they can do, or at least down the road if cyclops (MS) follows suit they will have to make it not infringe.
Anyone else agree?
I find it odd that the initial success of iTMS here in the US isn't good enough for the EU to say "ok, they were a good test bed. We let them take the risk, now we'll jump on". What exactly are they waiting for (aside from what the article says...which I think is just a bunch of sad excuses).
I also find it ironic that in that very article, they're talking about how the P2P networks are trading thousands of tracks per day, thus people aren't buying CDs. Um...hello...doesn't it just seem like common sense to hurry up and get this set up so you can get SOME money?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Article does not state what labels are actually participating or how much music will be available... Apple has a habit of not releasing a product until its already pretty complete.
what about switzerland?
yes, you have all the European store talk and all that, but what about us Asians? i wonder if apple is going to open up the iTMS to the people in asia. that said, Asians are almost the most gullible people in the universe: in Singapore, where i live, people buy a single ringtone for their mobile phones for a price even greater than an iTMS track, and they'd probably wait another thousand years for M$ to snap up the opportunity to sell them tracks instead. just because it's microsoft. but it's still quite a pity that plenty of US companies, US websites, US-everything, their products & services being the be-it-end-all of millions of people worldwide, just don't really bother about people beyond their shores.
as far as I'm concerned, You can keep hip-hop. I want the music store available in Japan so I can get music and an ipod. but I won't be storing hip-hop there. Motown yes. rap, hip-hop no. no m-n-m for me .... ... and Japanese hip-hop... SUCKS even more than I imagine Swedish hip hop to.
and I hope they don't only think that Japanese music sells in Japan. very little of that that I'd want even many clued in Japanese wouldn't want that.
Don't diss genres. plz
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
just don't want it to turn into an MTV where all we hear is stuff like that. we need more diversity of what is available to the public. not just what turns every 18-25er on.
Ok, if I as an American buy music from the iTunes store, I'll be able to use that music on up to three computers. Right?
I cannot recall any restriction saying one of those couldn't be my laptop with me on a European trip, or even a computer that I have at a European office.
So anyone who wants to obtain this material without going through a "European" iTunes store can simply set up an account with an American ISP and buy it there, then transfer the file themselves.
Or decide that that is too much trouble and simply steal it the old fashioned way.
Somebodey hasn't caught on that the purpose of the iTunes store is to allow customers who want to be honest to pay for the music.
Blocking the store won't block the music.