Slashdot Mirror
Why Won't Apple Sell Your iTunes LPs?
jfruhlinger writes "Over the weekend there's been a bit of controversy over the fact that Apple has effectively shut indie artists out of the iTunes LP market by charging $10,000 in design fees. But the real question is why Apple is in charge of designing the new iTunes LP at all, since the format is based on open Web design technologies. There's at least one iTunes LP already available outside the iTunes store. Why won't Apple sell it?"
I don't use iTunes so I must be missing something. Do they sell Long Play records on iTunes or does LP stand for something else?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I'm on the record (ha ha, "record," get it?)
Did anyone else make it past this? Because nothing (not even a goatse link) makes me stop reading faster than a bad pun.
Anyway in regards to:
Why Won't Apple Sell Your iTunes LPs?
Allow me to make a guess (and all you Apple fans get your negative moderation ready): Apple is bending over for the big labels that want to charge you more for this content you don't own (and also have a sketchy license to) when you purchase it. Now, they can't really DRM it and some people loathe DRM so really it's just bundled images, lyrics and videos. In the good old spirit of security through obfuscation, they think that keeping the creation technology secret to the big five labels prevent word getting out how to 'reverse engineer' this to get the content out so that you can replicate it and use it ... *SHOCKINGLY* ... somewhere else (which brings us back to the unclear licensing terms you're paying for).
Bottom line is that Apple is making the customer suffer and bating them with paying more for content they're not owning in any sense nor having a clear lifetime license to. Can I print out this artwork and put it on my bedroom wall? I'm guessing not. Personally I'm buying the box set instead.
Like DRM iTunes songs, it'll fall apart. Anyways, as the summary points out, it's futile. A clever 24 year old in Uruguay just made one. And I love that. I'm betting the open source community will make some extractors if you want the images, videos, lyrics and extras.
My work here is dung.
The answer is simple. The labels have made quiet little threats to pull hot product if Apple doesn't charge $10,000.
You mean, can anyone think of a reason better than greed? It's notable that this is basically what IUMA was doing for artists back in the day; they were the pioneers and they didn't charge anything like ten grand for their similar service (which promoted acts via the web long before any software even LIKE iTunes existed.)
I can think of one other reason: Someone at Apple is seriously deluded. $10,000 will buy a lot of web hosting and SEO. I don't buy for a second the idea that this was pushed on Apple; it seems very much like something Apple would do. They think people are going to pay them these outrageous sums for their design work, but the reality is that their design work outside of computer cases (all impressive examples of which have been done under contract) has always been lackluster at best. Apple's claim to design fame is their nicer version of Garamond.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It is quite likely that if they let people design their own LP's then Apple has to vet them for programming issues like cross site scripting especially if it allows HTML, Javascript or other languages to be active within them. And they just don't have the time to go over everyones code.
In which case, they need to come up with a standardized couple of formats in which people can plug in artwork, videos and other data to create their own LP.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Because Apple is a big corporation primarly interested in making money. Getting $10000 in design fees is a handy way of making $10000 more then if they just let you put it up for free.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
just guessing here.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I might be able to answer that question if I knew what "LP" meant in this context; come on people, enough with the obscure acronyms, put what it means in the story summary.
It seems to me that Apple hates it's customers and is angry that it depends on them for revenue.
Apple is not run for the benefit of their customers, but for the shareholders, executives and their friends.
They hate you, and their corporate behaviour says so again and again.
But some victims^H^H^H^H^H^H^H customers just keep going back.
the eye-candy is so... pretty... but they are not your friend. They still remember the time when you (their customers) left them and apple nearly went down the pan, and they blame you.
Because, as they've shown time and time again, the big difference between them and Microsoft is the total amount of power wielded. They've made it known that they're a competitor in the Industry of Evil.
Seriously, what "indie" groups are they keeping out with this supposed $10,000 thing (which isn't even proven true). As an 'indie' you can't get your music onto the iTunes store without backing of a distributor (and hence you're not 'indie' anyway).
Considering there are only 12 iTunes LP's available, if I were an 'indie' it would be a no-brainer to pony up $10k, since you'd have a massive audience for people who are buying them just to see them. Just like when CD's and DVD's were new and you bought whatever was available because so little was actually for sale.
Your all off the mark,
1) Apple is the Music Industry, it may not appear so but they are like it or not and in order
to continue to that relationship as a retailer, they must abide, confirm, defer to
industry pressure, via their lawyers
2) The reason for the 10k extortion is to please the industry and prevent the unsigned
meaning "free from major label and industry contractual slavery" from making a stand
without them reaping or rather raping the artist. Why 10k, because the legal cabal that
controls the industry thought that would be enough to deter
Plain and simple, its about control as usual
These things are a last attempt to try and make "albums" relevant. They don't matter. Albums are an ex-parrot. They're pushing up the daisies. They're singing in the... no, that's it, they're not singing at all. That's the problem. They're tragically unhip.
Come on guys... this isn't news at all... it's what I call a TEASER!
I can't call that English
...a big point of the article. I think record companies are being threatened by how easy it has gotten for unsigned artists to record their own music, and sell it on their own as well. Who needs to sign a big contract with a record company so they can steal all your sales $$ when you can do it all by yourself?
Whats the deal?
Apple is doing evil because they are evil.
Face it, customer, you are just consumer cattle being milked. You gave Apple a defacto monopoly on online music, now you face the consequences.
Shut up, don't complain, buy moar, be happy.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
LP really means "Lousy Product" -- Just like everything from crapple.
MP3 had a lot of crap, and by crap I don't mean "bad taste, but will sell reasonably well." It was the sort of stuff that is obscure because even with wide exposure it wouldn't get many fans.
My guess is that Apple wants to discourage said bands from participating so that most of the stuff that gets on there is of decent quality by serious artists not some fly-by-night garage band that cobbled together a CD using an Audacity tutorial.
Why is Apple charging $10,000? Because they can (or at least, think they can). When they no longer can, they will reduce the price.
In the case of Apple, they are betting that the 'majors' are willing to pay $10,000 to have Apple setup "iTunes LPs" for them. The article asks why Apple "controls" iTunes LPs, when they are based on open standards. My guess is that the answer is that, sure, anyone could create an iTunes LP, but Apple controls iTunes, so you can't publish your third-party created LP on iTunes, right? Hey, thems the brakes. It's been said that "Freedom of the Press belongs to those who own one". Maybe the smaller labels just need to man up, and work together to establish a viable competitor.
I'm happy for Apple that they've been successful, but as for me, I like to see a competitive marketplace, so I try to throw some business to other comapanies, where I can find them. (Though I will occasionally buy one of the non-drm tracks from Apple).
So that Slashdot will have something about it to write, to generate buzz about this new "iTunes LP" thing no one has ever heard about.
Football Odds
$10k to have your music get massive potential exposure via iTunes doesn't sound all that bad to me. Nobody is forcing the business model down peoples throat. iTunes isn't the be all, end all of music distribution. The alternative is open it all up for everyone until iTunes becomes as over congested and so full of crap that it is no better than youtube.
http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1038901&c=1
Then why couldn't you sell the m4a files on iTunes, and just make an itlp file available on your website. DRM is gone now from iTunes. There is nothing to stop you from doing that.
It hasn't passed the approval process. In this case, maybe they haven't finished designing the gargantuan process your LP will have to go through yet and exacting restrictions your LP must obey to get approval, hence the difficulty...
In a stunning new development, Apple revealed itself to be an anal-retentive control-freak of a corporation, with delusions of monopolistic grandeur. Video at 11.
In other news, it was revealed that the Pope is, in fact, Catholic, and that bears tend to defecate in the woods.
The existence of a file format to encompass an EP or LP style collection of files is a nice idea. There exists .cbr and .cbz for comic book files and other such container formats, so why not for music files? And yeah, throw in a menu and some info, why not, .mkv does this for video files for those who want to use that aspect of the format. But I'm surprised that music lovers/developers haven't come up with something like this before, and I find it kind of funny that now Apple has got in there first and there are complaints. How they manage iTunes aside, can't people who are interested in something like this get together and bash out an Open Format to do the same, either based on this format from Apple or something better? Sure it wouldn't impact the way many people use music files at first, but .png, .rss, and many more formats were in the same position when they came onto the scene.
MilkMiruku
Apple said today that it does not charge a production fee for iTunes LP, after an independent label in the US claimed that it was being priced out of the market for the new format.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
A bad LP could bring down the cellphone network. Also, terrorism.
Right clicking is extremely hard for normal people, why do you think it only recently made its way onto the mac?
It's been here forever, it's just that Mac people aren't afraid to use the keyboard in addition to the mouse, unlike you Windows mouth-breathers who can't find it if there's not a button on the mouse for it.
X-Windows users are of course the more vastly intelligent species still, doing everything with keyboard and form the start properly grouping mice buttons in threes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Extractor? On a mac, you just have to rightclick on the LP file
Shush! They don't know we've been able to do that for years...
http://www.macworld.com/article/143272/2009/10/ituneslp_fee.html?lsrc=rss_main
Along with that, you get video content -- in most cases, live concert recordings
So, I'm going to assume that this is the same stuff we get on youtube? Also I'm doubting if there are songs which are only available via the LP, then they probably won't be any good. Otherwise the radio stations would have crammed these into our skulls on a "repeat every 5 min" playlist.
...then, don't buy LPs from Apple. That simple. You can still by stuff song-by-song.
Apple has two sets of customers. Those of us who buy stuff from iTunes and the content providers who provide the merchandise to iTunes. Apple has to balance out the two competing interests. Sorry if you don't like that.
The content providers never liked the song-by-song buying because people cherry pick. What use to be a $12.99 album sale is now only a $2.98 sale of three songs that everyone likes a lot. Even decent songs that people might have grown to like weren't selling because people bought for immediate gratification. The triple tier pricing wasn't helping.
To get people buying albums again, Apple and the recording industry came up with something that provides an extra benefit for buying an entire album. You get linear notes, extra songs, a few behind-the-scenes type of stuff, etc.
If you think it is now worth plucking down $12.99 for an "album", go for it! If not, then buy what you want song-by-song.
At least give Apple credit that the album standard is an open standard with no DRM. Anyone can sell "albums". Anyone can create an "album". (The $10,000 fee is a misunderstanding. When Apple came up with the Album concept, the record companies could produce their own, or have Apple do it for them. To the big studios, $10,000 is a bargain, and many took it. It allowed Apple to have Albums on sale from day one, and showed the potential of albums to everyone. The standard is open, and Apple will allow anyone to create albums.)
Whatever you think of iTunes, it showed the world how to actually be profitable selling on line content: Make the transaction easy, provide reasonable value, and give consumers what they want. Apparently, that was a revelation to the record companies. The iTunes store introduced the following concepts:
* Song-by-song pricing. The recording industry wanted to push bundles and subscriptions
* You own the song when you buy it. The recording industry wanted to charge both subscription and rent.
* Reasonable pricing: 99 cents/song was a shocker to the industry who wanted to charge $2.99.
* Easy shopping experience: The iTunes store showed everyone else how to setup an online store. Now, there are dozens of them.
* Actually using the song on multiple devices. Yes, there was originally copy protection, but as far as copy protection went, it was quite mild: You could download your music to your MP3 player, you could burn a CD of it, and you could share it with five different computers. Apple may have never liked the idea of DRM, but the recording industry would never have gotten on board if Apple didn't have any at all. But think of what the recording industry wanted to do: You want a CD, to play it on your computer, and your MP3 player? Well, that's three separate purchases. With iTunes, it was a single purchase.
These are all things that we now take for granted for any on-line store we visit.
If you don't like iPods, don't buy one. You can buy many other MP3 players and there are many online stores that are a bit cheaper than Apple, or have music you cannot find on the Apple store. These MP3 players work well with those stores.
If you like iPods and have an iPod, buying from the iTunes store is quick, easy, and if you think that's worth the 20 cent premium, then buy from iTunes.
It's that simple.
My friend is on iTunes. He is not even indie, he's a nobody with no label. Yet his songs are on iTunes. How?
Tunecore. Read up on it.
Yes, apparently, Apple will not charge.
I'm not trolling here; this is called perspective. I was playing with resedit before most of you fanboys even had an opinion about Mac vs. PC. I've owned and worked with Macs, PCs, Unix boxes, and still others, and been boned by each in different ways. This comment, however, might reasonably be considered flamebait.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't care about the images/fluff. I don't watch the visualizations, I don't drool over cover art, I set my playlist and minimize the player (or stuff the mp3 player in my pocket). I don't buy movies to play the 'extra content' games on my CD/DVD/BRD player. I don't even really care for the bonus scene, director interveiw crap, either. This is just another example of big business telling me that more content = more value and how to buy/use a product so they can 'maximize profit'. Not that I criticize the effort, but I'd pay less to just have the songs which means I'd be an actual customer.
Rips are fine, thanks.
As one of you old farts myself let me just say: the more things change the more thing stay the same. Music is still good and people are about as smart as they've ever been and many new albums are good start to finish, but people are exposed to MUCH more music then they have ever been before and digital distribution has absolutely de-emphasized the importance of the concept of album and either of these things might have something to do with the finicky, song-based approach many listeners take today.
Quack, quack.
Responding to criticism that the iTunes LP format has been priced out of reach for independent musicians and labels, Apple has said it plans to open the format in the near future.
Essentially they will allow anyone to design their own LP and bypass the $10,000 production fee.
Some changes
2 button mice.!
Ipod didn't have video (nobody wants to watch video on a portable device was the Apple line), Later video on the same size screen.
Iphone apps will be web only app and run in safari, thats all you need apple said. Now they have a full SDK for native apps.
ipod nano has an FM tuner now! ?
Lots of new functionality with new iphone OS releases. (Cut and paste).
I'm sure there are tons of other examples
They're kinda arrogant, but they do listen, they just don't acknowledge that they do. They tend to frustrate people because the devices they sell are about 90% of what they want.
Obviously other manufactures aren't supplying what you want either (a huge capacity player). I would love and ipod touch with 160 gb and a big battery (at the expense of thickness). Apples not delivering so I'm still using my old fashioned ipod.
Because you don't have enough money and they don't have to. What part of "it's Apple's party" don't these idiots understand! I'm tired of Apple and basically everybody getting criticized for not doing something that they have every right not to do. Just because you want it and your attention span is about 3 seconds shorter than a fifty yard dash doesn't mean you get instant gratification! Buck up ask for what you want and stop whining because they price the startup fee out of your ball park.
Why bother
Guess I could've stopped after typing the subject... but anyway. I'm old enough where I still have LPs in a box somewhere. Thinking back to how often I looked at the liner notes, extras, etc. - the total for a given album varies between zero and one. I just wanted the music back then, and that's the case now.
I do find it funny (but not surprising; I've been on Slashdot too long to have high expectations) that people here are reacting with outrage, even though the story's been shown to be bogus - Apple says they're not charging a fee for this. Being the control freaks they usually are, they're working on opening it to everyone rather than just letting it out there: "We're releasing the open specs for iTunes LP soon, allowing both major and indie labels to create their own. There is no production fee charged by Apple."
#DeleteChrome
... and to really 'get it'.
Many corporations interact with their customers as if they (the customer) are a resource. In this scenario, the resource functions as the primary funding method for their operation. Stockholders for older corporations and *capitalists for younger or startup corporations.
Rather than view the process as devising goods and/or services that are offered to customers in exchange for funding to both repay the financing of the design and manufacture as well as ongoing expenses, some corporations experience the entire continuum of design/build/sell/repeat as if corporations are the whole point - that the corporation is what makes this all work.
Well, it doesn't. None of them do.
If we, the customers, chose to not buy certain types of products, the industries dependent on those products would fail. The classic buggy whip industry example being a good analogy, and portable radios being a current one. Hell, I do still have a little AM/FM radio, but it is now superceded by my Bluetooth headset adapter that includes an FM radio. AM? Not worth it to me. FM? Well, I used to rely on it more, but streaming to my cell phone works. I keep the AM/FM only because of disaster preparedness, and since batteries are finite, it will be a crank-up model. But enough of that. Portable radios as a market are pretty well shot.
And we do choose, though often we choose in response to stimuli - ads.
So when Apple decides to 'shun' independent labels in iTunes by charging them way too much money to be on the platform, they are choosing for us. Just like the grocery store that never has Durkee brand fried onion rings in the can around Thanksgiving, but has plenty of their store brand. Or automakers that no longer make much of a range of options available for their cars - you pretty much get one of 3 trim levels and option packages. Want A/C and a standard transmission? Hope they give you that option... Want steel wheels and leather seats? Sunroof and the smaller engine?
Apple has for a long, long time treated its customers as the resource that funds their intentions. Apple users pretty much get what Apple wants to give them, as ANY corporation does. But Apple has you captive - proprietary software, forced into proprietary hardware, with little real choice. Their insanely great design and above-average execution save the day. If iPods were built like most MP3 players, they would not be popular, battery issues aside.
So you get what you pay for, and you get what you choose.
Me?
I have a Toshiba Gigabeat S60 player, seriously flawed. A T-Mobile G1 phone, also flawed. That Motorola S705 is slamming, though. I just scored a Lenovo X41 tablet PC cheap, used, and better than many a netbook on the market today (IMHO, YMMV, etc). I'm pretty contrary.
But if I had to do it over, I would probably just get an iPod. No, wait, I hate iTunes, and the hassle of fighting a DRM'd solution. Windows Media Player is bad enough. And iTunes doesn't rip at 320kB, anything less is just not good enough for me. So I buy CDs and rip them to my taste. I even re-eq them sometimes to make up for my other and preferred headset, the Backbeat 903. And the G-1's weak player.
If you're just into buying it on daddy's credit card, plugging it in, giving up a modest amount of personal data, and paying as much for 10 songs as you would for the whole CD and avoiding having to skip over 3/4 of the songs cause they just suck, well iPod is for you.
Just don't feel too offended when I can't bear to hear your complaints about being taken advantage of by corporations.
ps- We do need to strip corporations of the individual rights they have been granted. They are not people.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
A lot of interesting conjecture all over the place, but I wonder why we're not noticing this angle:
LPs are bonus content to go along with the album, such as photos and videos, and other DVD-extra-isms, bonus content that is only available through iTunes.
Couldn't this just be a new way of enforcing iTunes primacy over music ownership? They gave up DRM (for the most part) on the songs, but here's new content (that costs money) that's still locked into the iTunes app.
Sure, you can pirate your music, but if you want the liner notes and studio footage, you'll have to shell out through their legitimate channel, and watch it from within your iTunes window.
I have a feeling that, like 5th Generation iPod app downloads, this is just a small-scale test. Apple loves beta testing in the marketplace. When the Mighty Mouse came out, everyone just assumed it was arrogance that kept Apple from putting 2-physical buttons on it, but the actual reason was to perform a real-world test of multi-touch. When Apple added multi-finger gestures to the trackpads everyone called it a gimmick, but it was actually an unrecognized real-world debugging of future iPhone gestures. My take is that iTunes LP is a test of the format for the unnamed "iProd". When iProd 1,0 comes out I expect the LP format to have a few additions to the bundle, but also for current bundles to be backward compatible. This would be consistent with Apple's M.O. I also expect iLife '10 to introduce the format to the masses. If unofficial versions of iTLPs are made and traded, then that plays right into Apple's hand. If the Apple-designed bundle becomes standard, then that keeps any bundle with proprietary components from leveraging power over Apple's hardware designs. (cough, Adobe, cough, Microsoft, cough.)
You know what one of these days all you nutters out there that keep on bolstering apple by spending your hard earned money with them will get the message and BIN THEM
trash'em thrash'em and generally crap all over them . i have said it before and will say it again you WILL REGRET pallying up with apple in the not too distant future
you have been warned yet again
I've always thought Apple should encourage you to buy whole LP's by setting a price at which it becomes a no-brainer to spring for the whole thing. Something like this:
1. Keep track of which songs a user has bought (I assume they already do this).
2. When you've bought 5 or more songs, offer a 'For $1 more, you can have the whole LP'.
3. Optionally, when you've bought 8 or more songs, offer a 'For $1 more, you can download the rest, and we'll send you a hard-copy CD in the mail.
The point is that you set an LP price that's less than the total of the individual song prices and then let customers 'upgrade' to the LP after sampling a song or two and deciding they like it. LP's end up cheaper than they are today, but they'd end up selling a lot more of them than they do today. Possibly by enough to make up for what they're losing now to single-song downloaders. Even if there's not much more money changing hands, the artists would probably like it. And maybe the return to album consumption would help revive the music industry by deepening the relation between fan and artist.
The physical CD part would be really nice too, though there'd be some real costs involved with that one, and maybe it would be considered too retro for iTunes.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
This whole thread has been about... nothing.
As much as people on this site diss Microsoft for being a Monopoly they are more victims of their own success. :- itunes/ipod exclusivity, AT&T / iphone exclusivity, buying Logic Audio / Final Cut and killing the pc versions, offering specialized un~upgradable hardware (imac) whilst offering no entry level hardware, disabling mac / pc functionality in their os, only allowing their os on their machines..., configuring quicktime to work better with macs (mac gamma) etc etc
Apple however are the fascists of tech. Everything they touch turns into some exclusive monopoly, this LP thing being just another example, others being
Loser Pays. Apparently pays about $10000 according to TFA.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I still own one of these things. Unfortunately it failed for the same reason LaserDisc failed - it couldn't record live television or home movies as VHS could do.
There were other problems, not least the weight and bulk of the disk and caddy.
For pictures of a typical Sears player: Adam's Selectavison Page
This is how monopolies get away with it
"see, we allow others to play in our sand box, its not our fault they cant afford it "
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Surly the fact that Apple has created an open format and it is actually going to be open is no surprise to anyone of moderate intelligence?
This whole "Apple is a Meanie to Indie musicians" story was a tempest in a teapot from the start, as are about 95% of the negative stories about Apple (and probably the positive ones too) that appear on Slashdot and other tech sites.
Apple re DRM
Apple re open source
Apple re multi-touch on iPhone
Apple re web apps on iPhone
Apple re apps on iPhone
Macs are totally insecure
Macs are totally secure
Apple the horrible censor
Steve Jobs is dead
Steve Jobs is leaving
Steve Jobs walks on water
etc. etc.
-- My apologies if the above facts contain any opinions, or vice versa! --
So, would they charge then $9,000 for the "format opening fee"?
Never actually having bought anything at iTunes, I wasn't aware of this. I've only ever downloaded podcasts. For music, I've always loaded my own ripped CD's onto my iPod. Showing my age, I guess.
Never mind.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Welcome to our website: Http://www.tntshoes.com
We offer grade AAA shoes here with wholesale price! Our shoes have some advantages as following:
1) Grade AAA shoes,handbags,t-shirts,belts,sunglass,caps.boots,etc!
2) The wholesale price!
3) 100% safe, the best delivery terms!
4) No mini order here!
5) The best service!
OUR WEBSITE:
YAHOO:shoppertrade@yahoo.com.cn
MSN:shoppertrade@hotmail.com
^ There, I said it. ^
Now I'll excuse myself from the discussion and go listen to my Zune.
Yep, they have mod points. I made a post in the Major Snow Leopard bug thread and it went from +4 insightful to +1 insightful back to +2 insightful, the fanboys couldn't decide amongst themselves to label me Troll or Flamebait so I remained at insightful for the whole time.
/. that we introduce a "-1 Uncomfortable Truth" mod for the fanboys to use so that Troll and Flamebait can be used correctly in future.
I've proposed to
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Did you dumb fucks miss the part where Apple announced today that it was a false rumor, that they won't be charging for LPs, and that they're going to release all the specs for people to make their own?
I guess they just don't want shitty homemade LPs to screw up the LP "brand". At least not initially. And $10K is really not that much for world class design work. I'd be surprised if a "real" LP (with artwork, etc) costs any less than that for a reasonable number of copies.
iTunes is not yet ready to sell your iTunes LP or your fucking eBook. That is all. They don't have the infrastructure yet.
If for some reason iTunes wanted to make any part of their content proprietary, why did they delay opening the store for a year to use ISO MPEG-4 instead of Apple QuickTime? Why is iTunes LP made out of HTML5 instead of Cocoa if they want to make it proprietary?
I know there is a strong urge among some people to bash Apple at every opportunity, but truly: use your fucking heads.
Each one comes with extra songs that you only get if you plunk down nearly $20 on the whole album -- you can't download these individually.
Like hell you can't.
This reminds me of those "collector edition" comics with the special cellophane bags to try and entice people into thinking they would somehow become collectible for their specialness, when in fact they were produced in the millions.
This is just another way of offering an artificially-tiered product of the same damned thing. And the customer knows it. Which is why they'll just go and download the torrent of an artist's whole discography instead of putting up with the bullshit.
Kind of like the pre-crippled Windows XP Home Edition. "What's that? I can pay more for the same physical CD, only this one has the features I want unlocked? Oh boy! Where does the line form?"
Indies couldn't get music in the iTMS for the first two or three years, either. The "new" MySpace Music will not be allowing "amateurs," and a similar policy will be in place when (if) Vevo arrives.
I wonder if Apple is charging the labels $10,000 per album, too. As an independent artist, I would have no problem waiting a year or two for the open format if it meant that the RIAA members were getting soaked for 10 grand per record in the meantime.
Umm, this just in ... Apple sells a product they don't own, in partnership with those that do own it.
Apple has gone on record as stating they hate the DRM, they would love to sell individual tracks at a lower price, and they are all for selling albums, but not at the rate of 99c x the number of songs, but their partner on the other hand has other ideas, and the partner calls the shots. By law, basically.
I would guess that independent artists are not going to get anywhere because there are ongoing discussions with those that own the product (RIAA members in the US; others elsewhere) to sell albums on terms that are somewhat palatable to users, and that Apple is focussed on getting those guys to sign something first.
Those discussions may be ongoing, stalled, or left for dead, but regardless until they result in some kind of agreement, the album thing is not going to happen. Period.
Please do not use undefined acronyms.
What is the meaning of LP please ?
Hi friend, we are a prefession online store, you can
see more photos and price in our website which is
show in the photos
we have large brand new shoes,clothing,
handbag,sunglasses,hats etc for sale, 300000% best
quality with the amazing price. please look at the
pictures and the price of our product in our website, if
interested, please email me by
Http://www.tntshoes.com or place the order directly
via our website please see below of the price list of
some products,
OUR WEBSITE:
Http://www.tntshoes.com
YAHOO:shoppertrade@yahoo.com.cn
MSN:shoppertrade@hotmail.com
Http://www.tntshoes.com
The shoes We can supply all kinds of shoes with different styles, You will find what your like.
Features:
1) Size for men US8-12 UK7-11(some US13/UK12)
Size for women US5-8/10
2) Packing: 1pr/box, 12prs/carton, 12prs/style/color(original box and retro card)
3) Many designs and colors available
4) Delivery can be prompt shipping
5) We accept paypal +++aaa quality .
OUR WEBSITE:
YAHOO:shoppertrade@yahoo.com.cn
MSN:shoppertrade@hotmail.com
Http://www.tntshoes.com
the RIAA members would just turn around and charge the artists 20k...
The goal here is for the artists to be the iTMS's clients, not the RIAA, who is just plain obsolete.
Because they still cant figure ou how to have itunes keep the tracks in the original order.
or stop mixing with other LP's or look in more than one place to get the name right.
or stop you from having to hit the new button if it dropped in the default music folder.
Or make you sign up for crap your not going to buy just to get album covers for othe aplications like screen saver.
Not that it can get most of them anyway.
Ok i will stop.
Some fan boy is doing the tuna.