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iTunes Europe Goes Live
Spad writes "The Register is reporting the launch of iTunes in the UK, France and Germany. "iTunes will carry 700,000 songs from the five major record labels and independents, and prices for the download service start at 79 pence or 99 euro cents per song." It's not ideal (99c is about 55p) but it's better pricing than expected. I for one will be signing up to use it."
So I'm curious as to what sorts of predictions people have for when the market gets completely saturated with music services. Particularly with ones like OD2's which is a generic music store that they sell to lots of people which leads to a lot of the same stuff with different branding.
Will we start seeing buyouts? Which ones do you think will go out of business?
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Why not all of Europe?
Well, probably, because they could not agree with the record companies. That's why.
You do understand that the difference between XP/2K and 98 is pretty huge when it comes to underlying technology, right? Of course you don't, otherwise you wouldn't make a comment like that. Apple would much rather focus on making it work well on the platforms that people use now, vs. grandfathering in a 6 year old OS.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
0.99 euro also converts to 1.19788 dollars. ;)
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So just imagine how much you get shafted when compared to the U.S.
However, to be honest
1. You should be used to this, especially compared to the U.S. Software prices are in the order of 15-40% higher here. One might argue 'shipping costs' but fact of the matter is that the same price difference applies to 'download only' versions of the software.
2. They needed a nice psychological number. 0.99 is one in many countries, but would put the price too high in the UK. 0.49 is another, but would put it too low. So go in the middle - 0.79
Or, more likely
3. When the Euro was first instated, the exchange rate was 1 Euro = (almost) 79p.
And it is as legal as the black market. Just what I want. I like getting visits from men in dark suits after downloading 100 songs from Russia that are 100% legal. Sign me up!
iTunes Europe might not be as successful as in the US since not all people listen to music in English. Until iTunes finds a way to customize the selection based on geography, I for one would not be willing to navigate through the site searching for my music.
Also, many artists have their recordings in multiple languages (like Eros/Laura in italian/spanish/portugese etc). Would be interesting to see how they unify or resolve the cultural differences
Now here is a good example of using big words in titles that are not at all covering for the real thing. "iTunes Europe goes Live". I didn't know that Europe was only UK, France and Germany. This is the same thing as to say that USA is California and Florida.
The 51st state is Afghanistan, and the 52nd is Iraq. Haven't you been paying attention?
The whole idea of having some content exclusive to only parts of the world is just stupid. It really shows the media companies are living in some bizarro alternate marketplace where a bigger audience is not preferable over control. Apple should try to bring everyone together in a single gigantic music hub. I want to listen to what the Japanese market listens to, the UK indie scene, Swedish garage bands, etc. Right now iTunes is simply your local music store in digital form but it could be so much more!
Why not simply go the full mile? I want every music track, movie, tv-show and computer game ever produced, and I've got an attention span of about 30 seconds so you better hurry up. Sell to me dammit, I've got cash! It's the inevitable conlcusion to all of this, being able to queue up that one funny episode from your fav sitcom from Poland from the 80's, and having it instantly. The money the media companies could be making is a magnitude greater than what they get today, by truly selling on a global level absolutely everything they've got in their dusty archives and all future productions. It's ultimate distribution channel so if it can be digitized and sold it should.
Sigh, something tells me they'd rather just work on DRM and new region encoding schemes.
It's like deja vu all over again.
If you can't use if, you're not expected to pay jack-shit. Now get with the times and upgrade to OS X.
I'm in the Netherlands, I've had to fix Macs for a living alongside "normal" pc's.
I haven't seen a lot Macs, even though that the store that I worked for was one of the biggest Mac-retailers in the NL.
Could it be because Macs don't break as often?
Personally, I agree that it's not a good deal for purchasing an entire album, for the reasons you listed. Where it is a really good deal, is purchasing individual tracks. For example, there are all sorts of tracks by my favorite artists available only on compilation albums. I don't want any of the other tracks on the compilation album, just the one. So it's great that I can pay 99 cents and get the song I want, rather than $18.99 in a store for the entire album, which I wouldn't listen to. The same goes for many reissued albums--Sonic Youth have put out a "deluxe" version of "Dirty". I already own the cd, but would like to have some of the new extra tracks without repurchasing the whole thing.
You also choose
- NOT to support artists, who have no say in whether or not their music is on allofmp3 and get little to no money in return
- NOT to support change in the US by saying "hey, I am willing to buy music for a fair price," but instead demanding an impossibly low price.
- NOT to support the concept of copyright, which is all artists have to protect them from rampant piracy. It's not just there to make corporations money, you know...there are artists whose work is so heavily pirated they've basically become unviable (several hip-hop acts come to mind).
- CHOOSE to support a black market whose "legality" is based on a crooked organization who has assumed control over music it had no part in making and plays no part in supporting. You may think that it should be legal, but in my eyes it's no better than KaZaa.
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Typically, a "media" company owns its own content. Apple owns no real content (either than its ads), nor is it making a play (yet) for a content company (or vice-versa, e.g. Sony buying Apple); so it doesn't appear that Apple is moving towards becoming a media company.
However, as you noted, Apple is certainly branching into consumer electronics, so it's more likley that they will continue to be a hardware company, but just one not completely focused on the computer market only. Given Apple's numerous awards for industrial design and cachet as being "sexy" and "upscale", it's probably a smart move (as the success of the iPod has proven).
Hardware was, is and probably will remain to be what Apple's all about.