Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Media (Apple) Media Businesses Apple

ITunes Music Store launches in 4 More Countries 45

Posted by timothy from the cupertino-money-funnel dept.
Paal Unanue-Zahl writes "I've just published the news in our blog, iTunes Music Store has opened in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland. As for Australia, no dice. It seems that a record company is holding up the launch for the Aussies. We are waiting for official confirmation from Apple later on Tuesday, but purchases are possible with credit cards from Norway and the country icon shows up in the 'Select country' page. Finally."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

ITunes Music Store launches in 4 More Countries More

ITunes Music Store launches in 4 More Countries

Comments Filter:

  • who could this possibly be? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spir0 ( 319821 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @10:44PM (#12484437) Homepage Journal
    Are Sony releasing a competing product [connect.com]?
    • We appreciate your interest in the Connect music store, but our store currently only works with computers running Windows 98 Second Edition or higher. You don't seem to be using that particular operating system at the moment, so, unfortunately, we'll have to part ways until we support the operating system you're currently using, or you make the switch to an OS that is compatible with the Connect music store.

      Ah, a test of wills. Let's see who breaks first.

    • Re:who could this possibly be? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by spir0 ( 319821 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @12:11AM (#12485062) Homepage Journal
      I tire of having to spell out every little thing in my replies - but for the person who marked my post as off-topic:

      Sony are starting a new online music store called Connect which is direct competition with Apple's iTunes store.

      There is an unnamed record label who are hampering Apple's progress in Australia (and potentially New Zealand).

      Sony owns a record label.

      Thus: Sony are probably the company who are slowing down Apple's progress.

      sigh.

      My maths may be wrong and I may be mistaken in my assumption, but please don't mod if you don't understand the topic you're moderating.
      • Explicit is good. :-)

        I didn't understand that you were trying to make that point when I read your first post. I thought you were just saying "oh look, Sony has a music store too".

        Thanks for clarifying.
      • but the sony guy showed up at Mac World this year! how can sony be for Apple, and against Apple?
      • Speaking of New Zealand and our need for iTunes or, really, any type of competition.

        A new CD in New Zealand currently runs around NZ$30, which was fine when our currency was valued around .5 to the american dollar. But now that we're at nearly .72 why hasn't the price of CDs followed? Why is it that CDs are the one commodity that inflation has no effect on?

        New Zealand has an active home grown music scene and if Apple could come in and help this market then they would also have a good opportunity for other
        • and my personal favourite.. prices of blank CDs have come down from $30 to about 50c. surely the cost of pressed CDs has also come down accordingly.
          • and my personal favourite.. prices of blank CDs have come down from $30 to about 50c. surely the cost of pressed CDs has also come down accordingly.
            Uhhh... no. The cost of actually pressing a CD has always been, and still is, neglible. High volume and all.
            • Uhhh... no. The cost of actually pressing a CD has always been, and still is, neglible. High volume and all.

              granted, but when you think of how the retail market for CDs has depreciated, the negligible cost 15 years ago for pressed CDs compared to the negligible cost now for pressed CDs is probably considerably more profitable than 15 years ago.

              man, that's the longest sentence I've written in a while. hopefully it makes sense - my head hurts too much to revise it.
              • The sentence may have been long. Doesn't mean it's coherent. How can a cost be profitable?

                At the risk of putting words into your mouth I'm assuming you meant that even though the cost of pressing CD:s is and has always negligible, it's still lower than 15 years ago.

                I think you need to look up what the word negligible means [reference.com].

                The fact that a negligible cost has lowered will have a negligible effect on the price of the final product. Which is entirely in line with what has happened. :-)

                Of course, this is i
                • all true. and it also ignores another factor -- value for money. the price of one CD is 2 movies tickets (3 hours of entertainment), or the average DVD (1.5 hours entertainment, but can be watched again and again).

                  however, even though I've watched some of my DVDs 3 or 4 times, most of my CDs have been listened to 80,000 times.

                  but that doesn't stop me wanting to pay less for CDs. I seem to have amassed hundreds when I was younger, but now life gets in the way and I'd be lucky if I bought 1 or 2 CDs a year.

  • About time... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pv2b ( 231846 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @11:15PM (#12484642)
    It's about time this service came to Sweden. Providing legal ways to conveniently download music while compensating artists is good news for consumers and artists (and record companies ;-) alike.

    Most people I know (including myself) download pirate copies off the Internet because of sheer convenience. I'm simply too lazy to go to the store and buy something (which might not even be in stock, but on order only), when I can just download a copy off the Internet and get it instantly.

    Now if the industry could just get a similar model going for movies and TV shows instead of suing file sharers...

    Can the media industry take note... I don't pirate because I want your stuff for free, but because it's more convenient. You can't compete effectively against electronic delivery with outdated models based on shipping optical discs to people!

    Unfortunately though, the iTunes music store doesn't seem to accept my credit card information. (No, I will not post the information so you can check out what's wrong ;-) But I don't think I should expect it to work fully. It's not even officially launched or anything!
    • At the moment, the swedish store only accepts Amex. It also seems to be kind of messed up, several artists with no songs, incorrectly priced albums (at least one album is set at 9.99 kr, which should be around $1.50) etc.
      These things will probably be sorted out soon. The only thing really bothering me is that the music selection i pretty bad. I wanna shop in the american store :-(
      • Yeah, I saw that in the Danish store too (Kristofer Åström & Hidden Truck albums are currently 9.99DKK but impossible to buy as they're "being modified"). I assume that it'll be up & running in the next couple of days.

  • Ob. Quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by earthbound kid ( 859282 ) on Monday May 09, 2005 @11:33PM (#12484772) Homepage
    I for one welcome our new ABBA overlords...

    And dammit, now I have "Dancing Queen" in my head.
    • ITMS here in Sweden lists 150 songs under the artist ABBA, including 15 in spanish, and only two in Swedish :-(

      However, many of these are duplicates as they come from different albums.
  • I'm just curious--how many countries is iTunes available in? I especially want to know if there's an iTunes in Japan, and if so, how can an American sign up there?

    I have no interest in most American music, so the American version of iTunes is pretty useless to me, but I would be very interested in buying songs from iTunes if there was a Japanese version.
    • Iie, Nihon ni iTunes Music Store wa nai. (No unicode support? Pfft.)

      (There's no Japanese ITMS. To change your music store country, click on "Choose store" on the left side of the main page.)
    • You can buy from the American version if you have an Apple Account that uses a US address and a credit card with a billing address in the US.

      Works for me. I've been in Tokyo about 2 years and it's never been a problem for me.

    • Most recording companies only license the songs to iTunes or other resellers on a per-country basis. If Apple opens a Japan store and offers songs and you buy them, it is still probably illegal for you to download them to the U.S. since the license to make a copy in the U.S. is quite probably owned by a completely different company. P.S. the intellectual property business is a mess.

  • ..is there any way for someone in America using a US credit card to buy songs from a foreign iTunes store? I haven't really looked into it myself (mainly because I'm too lazy to install iTunes and take a look :P).
    • I don't know about US buyers buying from overseas ITMS:es, but I know that Apple didn't let non-US:ians in non-ITMS-countries use a non-local store.

      I seem to remembering this having caused quite a ruckus with the European Union when UK citizens were not allowed to use non-UK iTunes Music Stores. The reason UK citizens would want to do that, is that the ITMS is significantly more expensive in the UK. Because of the pound and all.
      • Because of the pound and all.

        ...In spite of the [strength of the] pound, shurely?

        (I know what you actually mean of course - the inexplicably higher prices the British always pay, the take-off-the-dollar-sign-and-stick-on-a-pound-sig n price conversions, but that's something which happens in spite of the pound's strength, and is instead directly attributable to British weather and the mustn't-grumble mantra.)

        iqu :P
  • About time it opened in the Scandinavian countries (hi Switzerland btw). We have been consistently ranked among the most net savyy since, well, forever. These are obvious demographics to try out direct online retailing like this.

    Also -- i bought an ipod a year ago in anticipation it would be "right around the corner" for the European iTMS.. Well finally :)

  • Cool, about time (Score:3, Interesting)

    by theolein ( 316044 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2005 @05:27AM (#12486391) Journal
    Switzerland has one of the highest percentages of Mac users worldwide, and it's about time that the bloody itms showed up here.

Slashdot Top Deals

Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein

Close