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iTunes Australia to Launch Next Week
daria42 writes "It looks extremely likely that the iTunes music store will launch (finally) in Australia next week. Apple confirmed that its vice president of iTunes Eddie Cue, and vice president of iPod product marketing Greg Joswiak will be flying down under for a press conference on Tuesday morning. Cue has been prominent in a number of launches around the globe of the online music store, which is now available in around 20 countries worldwide. Australians have been waiting for the launch for more than a year now. It is believed Sony's Australian division wanted to block the launch."
From the article:
The iTunes Australia store is expected to provide largely the same offerings as its US and European stores, delivering access to almost one million songs at between AU$0.99 and AU$1.69 per song.
Crikey!
So what was the hold up? They wanted to try to secure Sony's agreement to supply Australians with their music?
:(
The Seven Network has said it will start distributing popular television shows such as Dancing with the Stars to the Internet and portable devices by mid-2006.
That's good to hear (not that particular show, but that australian shows will be uploaded), but do we get American shows, and if so, when do we get them? American shows are often delayed in Australia, with some episodes merely not shown at all (or shown out of order), while entire seasons can just not be shown at all (we never got Enterprise Season 4, the best bloody season of the lot and it wasn't aired). We also have to put up with sci-fi shows being stopped mid-season for rubbish like this.
It's better for people to just wait for the season to be released on DVD half the time (although not only do we get those delayed, we get shafted with those as well compared with the American one.
If Apple can offer American shows to Australians at the same time as they offer it to Americans, they'll find a market ready and primed for them. Heck, if it weren't for the small screen size I'd include myself in those who would readily leap at the chance to buy the shows from Apple. Unfortunately I can just see the government and/or television companies trying to stop Apple
It's frustrating to have to wait for the iTMS to be released down here, knowing that the songs I want to buy are one (illegal) click away. The same goes for TV series and DVDs. There's a whole heap of stuff out there that us non-pirates have to patiently wait for, even though there are perfect digital copies of that same stuff floating around, ready for the picking, for free.
A colleague of mine suggested that I (illegally) download the stuff I want, then send a cheque for the RRP direct to the artist, along with a letter explaining my predicament and suggesting that the developer hands over whatever percentage the publisher would normally take from them. The artist would thereby be compensated for one "stolen" copy of their work, and it would be up to them to decide whether or not to compensate their publisher in turn. I realised that this model could be extended to other kinds of digital content (movies, TV series, music, software), and that a lot of people out there would be happy to pay off their "guilty conscience".
This got me thinking. How about a website (guiltyconscience.com) that accepts anonymous donations (via credit card or paypal or whatever) to allow people to pay-off the guilt they have for illegally downloading music, movies, games and so on? The website would tally up the donations received and make regular "royalty" payments direct to the artist. A user could donate $10 and spread it over 100 songs, if 10 cents a song is enough to offset their guilt. Products could be identified via their Amazon ID or similar, to allow the artist to be easily tracked down. The result would be a perfect marketplace, in that each individual defines how much they're willing to pay for something they want without knowing what others are paying. The website wouldn't promote piracy (i.e. it wouldn't help people locate and download illegal content), but it would help to offset the damage it causes. After all, aren't we constantly being told that piracy is "ripping off the artist"?
Imagine how things would change if a good proportion of those who pirate movies, music and software actually DID pay the artist for what they "stole".
Facinating, I read your links and CDBaby does seem to be a great way for musicians to make the transistion from being a Pub band to semi pro or pro status.
...
Your Site and Concept sell themselves well.
If I wanted to get listed on Itunes purely to get listed provided I didnt use samples and was completely original didn't do a cover of an existing song I could be there for pretty much the cost of my time producing 2 cd's and 55 dollars (pretty much vanity publishing but for music).
might never get downloaded but hey I am published
For those musicians that want to get further then there is still a lot of work to be done. unlikely that someone will download your song by chance. I guess a musician could try p2p and give away some songs.
legally covers you can't give them away since you have to pay the publishers for a licience although it does seem that if i covered "what becomes of the broken hearted" and only ever got 10 downloads on Itunes then I would owe the publishers 90 cents.
I wonder what my liability would be if a few 1000 copys of my performance of this song got downloaded free on p2p. If it was deliberate on my part or just released by my "Fan".
Samples/mixes seem to be another huge minefield that will incur an overhead.
mixes might never be legal and samples seem to have a dollar value that assumes a minimum quantity of 500 to 2500 copys.
if your making sales it also seems likely that tax will be paid somewhere and it also means making accounts your friendly song publisher will want to ensure you really only did get 10 downloads.
however given all that I don't think CDBaby can be held accountable for the taxman the publishers or that fox fella for taking a slice from your sales.
The only negative I could see was a comment about cdbaby taking a fixed price from a Cd Sale
http://www.gnutellanews.com/article/6830
" Author: gdZiemann
Posted: June 6, 2003 at 7:46 PM EDT
Well, I've been writing to Apple for months before they started iMusic.
MacWarehouse has called me three times in the 2-3 weeks to update their records. They keep talking about their Apple "champs."
You know, I really have nothing against CD Baby. I think they're a great deal for a lot of artists still basically going the traditional route.
But if I use them, it will double my $5 retail price, because they charge $4 per unit. I'm not doubling my price to get in the club, so I can cut the price back to $5 on iMusic.
It might be the yellow brick road, but that damn witch is still hanging around.
"
Derek can you explain what this guy is talking about?
do you take submissions by people other than musicians
say i heard a good local band or a bad one for that matter and organised getting thier unpublished recordings to you. would you deal with me as thier representative or
would they have to come direct to you?
sorry if this takes away some of the wow factor from cdbaby but i would be interested to see your reply.
please correct any inaccuracys in my understanding of what cdbaby is about and the reality of publishing via cdbaby to itunes ect.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
blackest_k: Thanks for the nice comments. Yes when we sell the physical CD (where we warehouse it, ship it, etc) then we keep a flat $4 per CD sold/shipped, no matter whether the selling price is $10, $15, $20, whatever - that's how much it costs to do everything we do. It's actually a much smaller cut than Amazon, for example. For our digital distribution, we only keep 9%, paying 91% of all income directly to the artists. But I feel weird answering a customer-service question on Slashdot comments, so please feel free to email us (cdbaby.com/contact) for any details - I'd be glad to help.