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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!
It is high time that the drum beat of the digital age began conquering the lands it has not yet subjegated. That sounds harsh, but what I mean is that until digital content, and more importantly, digital distribution is ubiquitous (I dislike that word) there will be no revolution in the digital entertainment world. Until the entire world holds the *AA business model up for ridicule there will be no change worth reporting on the common man's news channel.
:-)
I really don't care who makes digital music available in any country, I just care that it happens. Hoooray for music... horaayyy for music unfettered by malicious middlemen distribution companies. It is aobut time that musicians began getting paid for their music without all the middleman crap. In this case, the digital age moves ahead of current technology to support the small businessman, small business, and the artist.
Copyright and patent be damned, this is a *GOOD* thing.
Personally, I've not listened to commercial radio for a long time, it SUCKS. I do support Internet radio with my money, its worth it. Its time for all of the old business model to crumble, and crumble fast and hard... fsck the *AA and their Italian sports cars... (okay, that wasn't really PC)
I'm just glad to see the old model breaking!!!
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
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
Almost like the Video Ipod, right?
that Paul Hogan & Jackko never made it to mp3
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
Duke Nukem Forever will also be released in Australia within the year.
Joswiak is obviously the product of secret genetic experiments at Apple in the early 1980s to combine the best of Jobs and Wozniak in the one beast.
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".
I have to say, I'm very impressed with the independent music scene in Australia. There's a great spirit of independence there, helped by Triple-J Radio, a gov't-sponsored nationwide radio that actually plays a lot of truly-independent local artists, QMusic - a gov't-sponsored non-profit to develop and help local musicians, AIR, the Association of Independent Record Labels, which is run by a few passionate punks in Brisbane.
(I'm SO impressed, in fact, that we're going to be setting up a CD Baby office in Australia in a couple months!)
That's a pretty standard markup for media or content in Australia. Remember we're still paying A$99.95 (US$74.88) for a new-release video game. Sometimes higher. A$33 for a CD isn't unusual either. So a ~25% price hike is pretty good by our standards.
I'm suprised it wasn't around the A$2.50 per song mark...
Apple NZ seems to just be a branch of Apple Australia. I wonder if this means we will be getting iTunes Music Store in NZ some time soon!
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
You're missing my point - deliberatly or otherwise.
Most of us probably avoid illegally downloading (aka stealing) music on principal - I know I do. I buy all my music on CD really, I've no interest in scrounging around for torrents etc. To use 'allofmp3' is just as wrong on that same principal because your money isn't going near the artist - likely just into some Russian mafia crooks war chest to fund other more sinister activities.
So the point is that if you're going to take an artists music without giving them ANYTHING (yes, I know the label takes most) then you would be doing every one a favour by just stealing it the normal way instead of maknig a charitable donation to a crime ring.
Only big ligs use sigs.
This means that Apple has to reach agreements with the groups in each and every country before they can roll out the iTunes store in each of those country.
While NZ and Australia share the same song rights group (APRA - The Australasian Performing Right Association), this is different to publishing rights which is governed by other groups.
Last I checked, it is still illegal here to make a copy of the music on a CD you own, for any reason at all - personal uses of any type included, even for an MP3 player. We have no fair-use provision in our copyright laws, nor (AFAIK) are we getting any as a result of the Free Trade deal with the USA (though copyright terms are being drastically lengthened to match the US). We own the media, but have no "license to the music".
There are already a few online music stores in Australia, but to my knowledge they only sell songs in WMA format, not much good for iPod owners. iTMS will be the first useful site.
I can imagine that all of our iPods would be desperately looking forward to playing something other than crappy bootlegged highschool bands, home-recorded birdsong & the occasional scroungings from Creative Commons.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?