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Music Media

iTunes Europe Goes Live 451

Posted by CmdrTaco from the you-submitted-this-too-didn't-you dept.
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."
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iTunes Europe Goes Live More

iTunes Europe Goes Live

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  • Since this is an Apple product (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Killjoy_NL ( 719667 ) <slashdot@rem c o . p alli.nl> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:30AM (#9428833)
    I know there is a Windows client for I-Tunes, but this article made me wonder.

    How many Apple users are there in Europe anyway?

    (Not trying to belittle them in any way, I'm just curious)
  • What about the rest of us!!!

    Must we wallow forever in the sinful pleasures of bearshare and kazaa?

    Save us oh Jobby one!

  • uk + fr + de != eu (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kraker ( 687285 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:32AM (#9428851) Homepage
    What? Only UK, France and Germany?

    Why not the whole of Europe? Did Apple also excluded one or more of the States of America?

    Grmbl...

    • Re:uk + fr + de != eu (Score:5, Insightful)

      by capmilk ( 604826 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:34AM (#9428876)
      Why not all of Europe?
      Well, probably, because they could not agree with the record companies. That's why.

    • Re:uk + fr + de != eu (Score:2, Informative)

      by sjb2016 ( 514986 )
      RTFA and see that an EU store will be opening in the fall. Also, the U.S., while made up of many constituent states, has one unified copyright set by the federal government. Europe has many varying laws, from country to country, I'd imagine.

    • Re:uk + fr + de != eu (Score:5, Informative)

      by swiert ( 227611 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:39AM (#9428944)
      Apple also announced that the iTMStores would open all over the European Union in October.

      For instance, see:

      http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jun/15itune s. html

    • Re:uk + fr + de != eu (Score:5, Informative)

      by jsebrech ( 525647 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:45AM (#9429007)
      The difference is that there is one copyright authority governing the entire US, and there is one copyright authority for every country in the EU, so supposedly you have to negotiate 25 different deals for every EU member country. The EU is not a country, it's a trade union.

      On the other hand, I'm curious about something: amazon can sell music cd's across europe, why can't apple sell music files across europe? Does amazon have some kind of special deal to allow them to sell copyrighted materials in every country? Or is the internet again being treated like the bastard stepdaughter of the copyright world?

      • Shipping versus downloading (Score:5, Informative)

        by kherr ( 602366 ) <kevin@@@puppethead...com> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:02AM (#9429198) Homepage
        amazon can sell music cd's across europe, why can't apple sell music files across europe?

        I suspect the difference is that Amazon.com just ships around pre-made physical goods, whereas iTunes Music Store offers digital downloading. It's essentially a completely new form of commerce.

        Apple needs to convince the labels that they want to offer their product through iTMS, hence the need to negotiate deals. Apple has also said the labels make the actual music files, not Apple. So again, Apple has to convince the labels to put effort into encoding their products for iTMS.

    • Re:uk + fr + de != eu (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:47AM (#9429036)
      This is probably due to two things;

      1) licensing issues. Each European country tends to have their own licensing agency, which licenses, say the latest Madonna track - even though the rights in all countries might be owned by a single company, you still have to go through these intermediaries (monopolies).

      While it is in theory possible to negotiate terms with only one intermediary for the whole of Europe (and has been for some time, think only of all the unencrypted pan-European tv and radio stations) it is in practice not only hard to do (these monopolies are bureaucracies which have a hard time understanding the Internet - there IS no standard contract) but you won't be able to shop around for a European tarriff. That is, if you close a deal within a country, you can bargain, but pan-European rights are locked down in a monopoly by way of agreement along all the national intermediaries.

      2) Europeans tend to speak different languages from country to country.

      They also have entirely different national banking systems, which only pay lip service to a single European transaction system. (e.g. yes, you can transfer money using an IBAN account number at the same rate as national money transfers (sometimes this is free), but good luck getting a form or e-banking page in which you can enter an IBAN acct number - and if you, the bank, or the receiver screws up, the banks don't accept any liability what so ever. Credit cards come closest to an international standard for funds transfer, but few Europeans have them, and even fewer would give out the number on the internet).

      Then there's the issue of sales tax, statutory customer rights (the EU wide policies only specify the minimum, so member states could have enacted laws that allow for returns of tunes), etc. etc.

      Opening up a pan-European shopping site is no mean feat.

    • Re:uk + fr + de != eu (Score:3, Informative)

      by NoNeeeed ( 157503 ) *
      Well, from this article [theregister.co.uk] at the Reg (the one linked to in the article has been removed from their front page)...

      The Euro prices will be maintained when Apple launches a pan-European store to cater for the continents other nations. Jobs promised it would open by "October", and will initially be offered only in English. Jobs offered no comment on the launch of Canadian or Japanese stores.

      So it is probably a combination of having to bash out licencing issues with the companies, and logistical issues to do

  • UK pricing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MikeS2k ( 589190 ) <mikes2NO@SPAMntlworld.com> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:33AM (#9428860)
    Well, kudos to them for not making us Britains pay 99p a track, like I'm sure some other companies would.
    We still pay the highest price, but I'm getting used to being shafted out of every penny I own here anyway.
  • What I want to know is when iTunes will be released for Windows 98? Something tells me its never going to happen but surely it wouldn't be that difficult for apple to release iTunes for win 98?

    • Re:Windows 98 + iTunes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wankledot ( 712148 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:37AM (#9428911)
      "but surely it wouldn't be that difficult for apple to release iTunes for win 98? "

      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.

      • Incidentally, the technology you're speaking of is background services. iTunes uses them to perform any task that might take processor time away from music playback...they use separate services for managing the iPod, downloading from the music store and burning CDs.

        It's kind of an unusual practice in the PC world...generally, services are used for things which run all the time and are related to maintenance of the system. So why does iTunes use services as opposed to threads? Well, I dunno. My theory i
      • That the majority of users are not using windows XP. The majority of windows users are still at the win 98 stage. Apple is instead trying to make it work well on the newest platform available. People who spend mor eto upgrade thier computer are more afluent and therefore are a better demographic to have running their software. Plus, it probely wouldn't look as "good" as it does on XP. Thats most likely the real reason.
    • Latest version of QuickTime runs on 98, so I bet there's some significant reason why.

  • Tragedy of the commons (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:33AM (#9428862) Homepage
    So everybody and their brother has a music service these days. Obviously Apple is one of the better ones, but thats still a lot of competition, and a lot of marketing dollars that are going into stealing that competition from Apple.

    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?

    • I think, at the end of the day, victory will go to whoever can court the most artists. Music stores are really pimping their exclusives, and obviously it'll be harder for Apple to grab exclusives on SONY artists now that Connect is live. But Apple is doing something most labels aren't -- it's courting the independent labels and targeting specific markets with their excellent Jazz, Classical and Audiobooks sections. As such, they have an impressive NUMBER of songs, as well as an impressive DISTRIBUTION of

  • Not much on there yet... (Score:5, Informative)

    by jaytay ( 412336 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:34AM (#9428867) Homepage
    Well it's launched but there's not much on there at the moment and there's an awful lot of "Partial albums" consiting of just one song. Hopefully they'll be adding more tracks over the coming weeks....

    • Re:Not much on there yet... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sunspire ( 784352 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:06AM (#9429235)
      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.

      • Re:Not much on there yet... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by RogerWilco ( 99615 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @10:41AM (#9430380) Homepage Journal
        You're so right,

        In my cicle of friends I see a lot of people downloading not the films/series that are broadcasted on TV here in the Netherlands, but especially the stuff that's not on the local networks.
        Japaneese Anime, Brasilian soaps, indy music, episodes that have aired in the USA but not yet in europe, etc.

        They would pay for a legal alternative, but it just is not there.
        There are hundreds of niche markets that do not warrant nation wide broadcasting, but could make gold money in some bittorrent/iTunes combination, where increased demand would increase the number of nodes.
        DSL+Tivo-like product could do this in a very convenient way. The box would function as a seed for the last 20 things you downloaded next to the Tivo like behaviour.

  • Exchange Rates (Score:5, Interesting)

    by indie1982 ( 686445 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:34AM (#9428873) Homepage
    Well i think we're getting a shitty deal in the UK when 0.99 euro converts to 65p and UK users have to pay 79p a track!

    • Re:Exchange Rates (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Animaether ( 411575 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:43AM (#9428987) Journal
      0.99 euro also converts to 1.19788 dollars.
      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.

    • Re:Exchange Rates (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Rosyna ( 80334 )
      Doesn't that 79p include the VAT as well? The 99cents price in the US does not include sales tax. You need to consider that before you start whining about the high price...

      Removing the 17.5% VAT, the price is about 67pence. Which is about $1.21. So you are complaining about a 22 cent difference... And do you think Apple should be adjusting the price when the exchange rate changes? Right now the dollar happens to be really low. What happens when it gets higher? Apple would have to raise the prices. Do you w

    • Re:Exchange Rates (Score:4, Informative)

      by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:12AM (#9429305) Homepage Journal
      Yes, it's a complete rip-off.

      Why would I buy a virtual CD for 7.99 when I can get the real thing for 8.99 including postage [cd-wow.com]?

    • Re:Exchange Rates (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:12AM (#9429307)
      Well, the British didn't want to join the Euro, because they wanted to be independent. So, now that you are, hope you are still happy with your independence!

  • No OS9 support (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:34AM (#9428883) Homepage Journal
    I can't use it with my Apple operating system, and I'm expected to pay nearly 50% more than Americans?

    Seems like a huge own-goal to me, and I'm a Mac fanatic.

    • Re:No OS9 support (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Durandal64 ( 658649 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:14AM (#9429339)
      If you can't use if, you're not expected to pay jack-shit. Now get with the times and upgrade to OS X.

  • Bah... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MouseR ( 3264 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:35AM (#9428894) Homepage
    ...still not available for the 53rd state: Canada.

  • too expensive? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Errtu76 ( 776778 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:36AM (#9428904) Journal
    99 eurocents per song might seem expensive. But how many of you haven't bought a cd because you liked some songs, only to find out later you really don't like the rest of them? Then the option of legally owning the few songs you *do* like isn't so bad.

    Btw, is it illegal to download the cdcover of the full cd if you bought only a couple of tracks?

  • HOW expensive again? Check out allofmp3.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:36AM (#9428907)
    Screw that. Try allofmp3.com. I pay 1 to 2 cents per meg, don't have to deal with annoying DRM, and choose whether I want files in mp3, ogg, wma, aac, whatever, even lossless FLAC, and the bitrate I want. I haven't used filesharing since I found it.

    • Re:HOW expensive again? Check out allofmp3.com (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chrisgeleven ( 514645 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:44AM (#9428992) Homepage
      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!
      • Seriously, don't worry so much. If you are afraid that "men in dark suits" will visit you after "downloading 100 songs" you clearly have problems and should probably seek professional help...

  • A worthy effort (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zog The Undeniable ( 632031 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:44AM (#9428997)
    But Apple can't compete with free (and no DRM). Significantly, the BPI (British Phonographic Industries) haven't used the same bully-boy tactics as the RIAA yet, so British P2P users can make their hard drives available with impunity.

    I wonder to what extent Apple's business model anticipates a similar crackdown on this side of the pond?

    • Re:A worthy effort (Score:5, Informative)

      by cowscows ( 103644 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:23AM (#9429436) Journal
      I don't think most of the iTMS customers are being driven to the store by the RIAA's lawsuits. All along, there have been lots of people saying that they downloaded music from P2P because it was convenient, and they only did it illegally because there was no decent legal alternative.

      Apple's business model is to make things even more convenient, allow people to be honest, and offer it at a price that's not much worse than free.

      Sure, there are still plenty of people out there just downloading whatever they can find for nothing, just as there are people who shoplift in brick and mortar stores. But that doesn't mean there's no money to be made in selling stuff.

  • Language Issues (Score:4, Insightful)

    by coolsva ( 786215 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:45AM (#9429006)
    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

    • Re:Language Issues (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Fulkkari ( 603331 )

      There have been non-English music on iTunes since it's launch. Then why would it be a problem now? They will most likely do the same thing they are doing now; they append " (Spanish Version)" or Italian or whatever to the song name.

      If you want to search for Spanish songs by some artist, do a simple "Artist name Spanish" search, and you should get all the Spanish songs by the artist.

      What was the problem, again?

  • Bad news for Apple (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:46AM (#9429024) Homepage Journal
    None of the independent labels are signing up for iTunes; and that means the vast bulk of their service will be made up by the commercial schlock the majors are trying to cram down peoples throats. (Unlike the US, non-major labels are a big chunk of the UK CD market).

    No Franz Ferdinand? No White Stripes? No Dizzee Rascal?

    No thanks, Steve.

  • Welcome to International Business (Score:5, Informative)

    by alexhmit01 ( 104757 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:47AM (#9429039)
    If any of you follow financial news, companies are reporting additional gains from exchange rates, and some years report losses...

    Prices are set in local markets based upon localized demand and competition (limited monopoly pricing power from brand, even in a relatively competitive market), etc.

    Right now, it is cheaper for Germans to buy German cars sold in America and reimport them, because even with the cost of shipping the car from the states, the Euro is so strong on the dollar that it results in the importing the American made German car is cheaper.

    Companies set prices (usually with local subsidiaries because of assinine international tax laws) in each country. Many companies will engage in "hedging" with the currency derivative market, because they aren't in the business of currency speculation (although if it should work out in the long run, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, then paying the commissions on those trades isn't economically intelligent, but it's important for hitting quarterly/annual numbers, joys of public accounting).

    However, the price will be set in the European market based upon the prevailing price there. However, that is in part because of Apple's limited "monopoly" pricing power (note, this is NOT monopoly a la anti-trust, it's in a competitive market with highly similiar substitute goods, like CDs, pirated music, etc.), but only Apple sets the price for iTMS downloads.

    One of the things that the Internet and digital transfers has the potential to do is destroy regionalized pricing, at least within the English (and then Spanish, etc.) speaking world. In that scenario, Apple could set prices in each store based upon local trends, but consumers could buy from whichever store TODAY's currency price makes most beneficial. That is great for consumers, but lousy for corporate profits (then they ALWAYS lose on the currency fluctuation, because the business goes to whatever is cheapest that day).

    However, a Euro price that isn't identical to US pricing with TODAY'S rate of exchange makes sense. The Euro is up something like 30% on the Dollar in the past 12 months. If that trend reverses, and 1 $ = 1 E again, then a Euro price of 55 cents would devastate Apple. The Euro was established at a price level to make the nominal exchange of Euros to Dollars approx. 1:1, which would obviously fluctuate.

    Consumers in general are more interested in pricing in their local currency then international pricing. Although the Internet has changed things SLIGHTLY, in general, most consumers don't engage in International trade, but rather buy from an organization that has imported the products for them. Hence Amazon has localized businesses, Apple set up local Apple AND now iTMS to price in the local currency. Cars are priced in each local market.

    However, the free flow of information will reduce that ability over time, which is a good thing, but you shouldn't be shocked that it isn't instant.

    Alex
    • Big business has been arguing (quite rightly) the case for a free flow of goods and services as a means of creating more efficient markets and thus lowering their production cost. Unfortunately, at the same time they appear very hesitant in extending these benefits to the consumer.

      Region encoding on DVDs was only the most blatant example where markets were kept artifically separate, but it extends to many other areas, particularly cars (VW has been convicted under EU law for trying to stop Germans buying V
      • There are *no* shipping costs, yet i-tunes US won't sell music to a UK customer, presumably because they figured out they can extract more money from them...

        Or presumably because it would get them sued by copyright holders because the deal under which they sell songs in the USA only covers the USA or indicted for tax evasion because each nation has it's own laws & taxes.

        I'm sure that if Apple is making a profit at .99 per song they would be happy to just sell through one world-wide store and not ha

  • Price differentiation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 16K Ram Pack ( 690082 ) <{tim.almond} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:53AM (#9429110) Homepage
    By EU law, can they do this?

    I thought that the EU was dead against people being able to price people differently based on country. In other words, if you go to a site, that site can't give you a different price based on your country of origin. But, that having a UK site and a French site with different prices is OK.

  • That's not Europe! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mbrix ( 534821 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @08:54AM (#9429117) Homepage
    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.

  • Magnatune.com (Score:5, Informative)

    by pointwood ( 14018 ) <{jramskov} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:00AM (#9429173) Homepage
    Check out Magnatune.com [magnatune.com] - no DRM, just music and 50% goes to the musicians.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:12AM (#9429311)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • If you buy music using iTunes, you get unlimited burns to CD, and then you can rip it and play it on whatever machine/platform you like. I can't believe that people use the reason of having a closed, DRM-infested format for criticizing ITMS when clearly, there is a very easy way out of it: burn to disc.

      Moreover, you would be suprised at how clear the 128kbps AAC is. Just for the sake of testing, I own a copy of a song (ATB - Don't Stop) on CD, and I bought another copy on ITMS and burned it onto a CD. I l

  • But it's still a rip off... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gilesx ( 525831 ) * on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:13AM (#9429327)

    You for one may decide to use it, but on the other hand, I for one will continue to purchase my CDs for 6.99 for CD-Wow (average of 11 tracks at 6.99 is 64pence a track) with the added bonuses of

    a - Better sound quality

    b - no restrictions on how many different devices I play it on

    c - no restrictions on how many times I can rip it

    d - the possibility of ripping it to the (superior) ogg format.

    e - the artist getting a bigger cut of my money

    f - casing, and cover art

    So when you buy a CD, you get more for less. Hmmmmm so tell em again, exactly why is iTunes such a great deal?

    • Depends on how you use it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by reptilicus ( 605251 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @10:00AM (#9429872)
      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.
    • Because, you can't rip your new CD's anyway! They are f*cked up to offer copy protection, that can easily be broken, but the loss is the bits that keep the error-correction, thus making the quality lower than any regular CD.

      Breaking the CD copy protection is illegal by law, so even if you could use say a HIFI CD-player with optical digital out and a soundcard in your PC with optical digital in to do this, it would be illegal.

      So this sums up to:

      a - Yes, but with some scratches, you'll be lucky to hear any

  • Variety of Tracks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by herwin ( 169154 ) <herwin@NosPam.theworld.com> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @09:32AM (#9429531) Homepage Journal
    Is low. I couldn't find many artists I wanted, and the songs available for the others were quite limited.

  • different selections how? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by devonbowen ( 231626 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @10:20AM (#9430115) Homepage
    People are saying the selection is low. How is Apple providing two different store fronts? Are they keying on the IP address? I live in Europe but use a US credit card to buy from iTMS. Will this change if iTMS is offered in my country?

    Devon

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