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'Extraordinary' Soundtrack Will Be Apple-Exclusive

Posted by timothy on from the five-parsadigm dept.

Isbiten writes "Apple has just gotten the rights to the soundtrack of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. There will be no physical CD and it will only be available from the iTunes Music Store. Cnet has the story."

14 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. What if? by wowbagger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What if I prefer to buy my music in a more lasting form?

    What if I prefer my music to be compressed with FLAC?

    What if I prefer to compress my music with MY parameters, to meet MY standards of audio fidelity?

    While I am all for Apple being able to distribute this electronicly, while I can accept Apple being given sole electronic distribution rights to this music, I don't like that this won't be available as a plain ol' CD.

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
    1. Re:What if? by n.wegner · · Score: 5, Interesting

      >Art isn't public domain

      To paraphrase the US constitution:

      Culture is the public domain. Art is one form of culture, and culture contributes to art. The public has the right to freely enjoy its culture. The US constitution makes it very clear that copyright is only granted, for a limited time, to reward the public for creating and expanding the public domain, and the public's culture. The burden of proof lies with you.

      >Just because you are used to one way of
      >purchasing/enjoying art, doesn't make other
      >methods 'unfair'.

      In the general sense, yes. But when Apple only sells music in a worse (more lossely compressed than CD or Flac), or the Louvre only sells copies of the Mona Lisa on postcards, or Pendant publishing won't even print old liturature, then it's both unfair and unethical to deprive the public of enjoying its culture.

    2. Re:What if? by switcha · · Score: 3, Interesting
      The public has the right to freely enjoy its culture.
      And likewise, freely make their own art/culture contribution if they don't like what's offered. With all due respect, the way you phrased your initial comment could be twisted to include 'code poetry'. Yay, software piracy is for the 'greater good'.

      The US constitution makes it very clear that copyright is only granted, for a limited time, to reward the public for creating and expanding the public domain, and the public's culture.
      Very clear also, is copyright law that says you can do what you want with your work until the time you aren't protected by that law, and the 'common good' stuff kicks in. As far as I know, the soundtrack was just released and has a ways to go before it's in the class of American Standards.

      --
      You know what? ... A little club soda *did* get that out!
    3. Re:What if? by n.wegner · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >Allowing inventors and creators to profit from their work before it goes to the people?

      Which is why they are protected under copyright law, as I said.

      >You insisted that copyright law is more for the public's good than protection of creation.

      I insist that the protection of creation (as explained in the US constitution) is for the public's good.

      >they don't care that much about super high fidelity either. They just want to enjoy it.

      When the copyright expires, though, I'd rather have CDDA or Flac copies available to those who want them, instead of only have AAC.

  2. Re:What about the Apple Records suit? by coolmacdude · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Enough with Apple records already. I don't think they care anymore. Do they even still exist? Even if they did, they would never survive against the beast that is Apple Legal.

    --

    -You may license this sig for only $6.99.
  3. Apple's got something up their sleeves. by sonicsft · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you look at surrounding evidence that's popped up recently:
    -Job posting for Windows iTunes developer
    -Numerous bands are being scheduled to play Friday in apple stores, etc....
    -This album announcement

    I'd say Apple is about to release iTunes for windows. But I'm never very accurate on this guesses by it makes sense to me...

    -sonic

  4. They're experimenting by jlower · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just wait, when they debut the Windows version of iTMS, there will be another exclusive, probably much bigger than this one, to go with the launch.

    They're just experimenting now -- testing the waters.

  5. simple by SHEENmaster · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Start up MoL on any PowerPC, dump sound to a WAV while playing the proprietary files, compress and distribute.

    An easier way would be to burn it to disc and rip that disc. It won't sound as good, but figuring out the compression part of the iTunes format and overlaying that onto another format could fix such problems. Then again, we can always distribute a ~50mb WAV for each song if we're desperate enough.

    As soon as someone cares enough to make the tools, high quality rips of iTunes music will be available on filesharing networks.

    --
    You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
  6. Re:It's an original score...not a compilation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's not true at all. The music for the film is recorded in a completely different set of recording sessions than the music for the soundtrack album. The acoustics of the studio are different, and the placement of microphones is changed to record for a two-channel mix versus a six-channel mix.

    Score albums are entirely different recordings from the scores themselves.

  7. Re:What's That? by Dr+Reducto · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's exactly what I meant. Now that Apple is publishing CD's itself (exclusive distribution), Apple records has a strong standing if it wants to file an injunction against Apple computers.

  8. Oh well, can't buy it. boohoo. by Muggins+the+Mad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And for those of us where iTunes Store isn't supported.... (ie. the rest of the civilised world)

    It's only a bit of music, I'm not going to lose any sleep over not being able to buy this one, but exclusive deals in any form just suck.

    I tend to shy away from services that are full of "exclusive this, exclusive that" as they're just damaging my freedom of choice.

    - Colin

  9. Re:wow by Greedo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't wait to log on to the Apple Music store and download my copy of ...

    Oh wait.

    I don't live in the States.

    I guess I'm SOL.

    --
    Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
  10. Re: Yeah, smart move... by Blondie-Wan · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Actually, there will indeed be a physical CD, for the benefit of people who can't (or won't) use the iTMS; the CD just won't be distributed at retail in the US.

    In the US it'll be available only through the record label's site; outside the US it'll be sold in all the usual ways. Presumably CD stores in the US that carry imports will also get a few copies that way, so it actually should be quite possible for non-iTunes users to get it (and of course, once the Windows version is released, most people will be able to get it that way, too).

    As for whether it's a smart move or not, the point is actually to determine just that. This release is an experiment by Fox Music to determine the viability of releasing something this way. Since orchestral film scores have a highly limited audience anyway (I like to think of them as real alternative music ;) ), they're not risking as much in the way of "lost sales" (ahem) as they would if, say, the latest Madonna album or whatever were an iTMS-only release. While naturally Fox would like the money from sales, it's willing to risk the hit to what would surely be modest sales anyway in order to get the information about how it does, which is far more valuable to them in the long run.

    I actually wrote about this for our gaming clan's website more than a week ago, a couple days before the soundtrack actually showed up at the iTMS (it was released there a week ago as of this posting). My "informed sources" included a record producer at Fox Music, who indicated to me that people above him at FM had decided on this release strategy as an experiment.

  11. Re: Yeah, smart move... by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "so presumably the worst-case scenario for people who want this is they'll either have to wait for some indeterminate time between a week and six months to get it from the Windows iTMS"

    Well, that's what sparked my original comment. They won't wait. They'll acquire it via P2P. And if that happens, I worry that it'll be used to justify DRM and legislation and everything else the RIAA has tried to do. I realize this is FOX and not the RIAA, but still.

    "Hmm... perhaps that's why the CD's getting released after the iTMS file? I wonder... "

    Well, they've got a customer base that cannot possibly use this album, so I can imagine that's their backdoor. However, the whole 'instant gratification' factor becomes a big part of it. With the RIAA's recent announcements to sue individual P2P users, I'm sure there are a signficant number of people saying "I don't need to buy CDs anymore". They may well sell CDs here, but I'd be cautious about using this as a ruler for future business. (I could be assuming way too much, btw. I'm on the pessimistic side. ;))

    "Ah. From this, it sounds a bit like you don't know there's a Windows version in the works. Were you aware of this?"

    Yes, I was. But unless it's coming out within a week or two of the release of this album, I'd say that they're begging for a failure. If Fox were to say "We have a few more albums we'll try it with..." I'd settle down a bit. If FOX says "We released this, and we didn't sell many, but plenty made their way around the net anyway so we won't do it anymore" I'd be rather loud-mouthed about it. Maybe FOX is smarter than that? At some point, somebody has to realize that there's a model to be had here.

    If it's successful, I hope they publish the results of how much it cost to release the album this way sans CD media. (i.e. what'd the bandwidth cost?)