“Old-fashioned red tape is delaying the eagerly awaited European launch of Apple Computers’ Internet music store iTunes, a company official said on Saturday. A maze of licensing contracts, music release dates that differ by country and incompatible billing systems have combined to sidetrack the service, which many recording executives still hope will make its European debut in the first half of 2004,” Bernhard Warner reports for Reuters.
“‘We will be here this year. I’m not going to announce the date at this time, but we are working very hard,’ Eddy Cue, vice president of applications and Internet services for Apple, said at the annual MidemNet music conference on the French Riviera,” Warner reports.
Full article here.
Obviously, none of us have anything to do on a Saturday, huh?
I don’t have firsthand information, but I suspect the lack of iTMS in Canada has to do with a different kind of red tape: Canadian content laws. Unless Apple can procure an exemption from the Canadian parliament (which is pathologically afraid of doing its job, preferring to leave all contentious issues to the courts to decide), it is illegal for a foreign-owned company to operate such a service in Canada. Amazon.com were prevented from opening a Canadian subsidiary for years on end until they finally made a deal with a local partner to be the ostensible owner. Think that’s bad? For 20 years, Canada was the only ‘free’ country on earth in which MTV was not allowed to operate. At long last, they did get a licence to start up MTV Canada . . . but get this: on condition that they not broadcast music videos! (That is, not more than 20% of their schedule or some silly limit like that.) Why? Because a Canadian company had been granted a licence to be the monopoly music-video channel in Canada!
If MTV had to wait 20 years before introducing a crippleware version of its service in Canada, just imagine how long Apple will have to wait. I just shake my head at this government.
MoM: actually I’m so shallow, you could wade through my deepest thoughts and not even get your feet wet (thanks to Douglas Adams).
I don’t need to provide an argument for what you say because it’s not true: for a laugh, the band I was in as a teenager put one of our tracks up on MP3.com about two years ago, and we have no links to ASCAP or anyone. However, that’s not to say that that ASCAP et al don’t extract some tribute or another from MP3 or Garageband.
I’m not standing up for the system as it currently exists – actually I think it’s nonsensical and fails to acknowledge the way music has been produced, promoted and distributed for the best part of 25 years.
However, it is a status quo that is vigorously defended by vested interests whilst supported by international treaties signed and acknowledged by sovereign governments of various political persuasions.
If your work is published by an affiliate of a rights society, or you use musicians that are similarly affiliated you will be affected by this issue. And if you’re not, you’ll have to go and negotiate with anyone who plays your music independently or accept the fact that your music will become ‘public domain’ in the sense that you won’t have the mechanisms to police and defend your copyright, because your an artist not a penpusher.
Charlie: actually the ‘mechanical’ bit of all of this actually dates back to player-pianos so that composers could get receive cash for having their music ‘mechanically’ reproduced on player rolls, so its actually even more outmoded than you think.
Matt: no this is busy, you should see me on a Sunday.
Jay,
Speaking about Canada, this has always bugged me. Do you know how CD or other media storage levy is distributed? Everywhere articles say that it goes back to the artists, but never do they mention how it’s being done. I mean, was it distributed by the popularity of the artists or their work? Is it done evenly so even the artist wannabees get their shares? Does one have to be registered to receive one’s share?
Apple should open iTMS in the France or Germany or both. Then we could buy songs in �uros and nobody could do nothing. EU legistlation says that Europe is one country for trade. It sure that this would go in court and it is sure that Apple would win it. Problem is though also the Beatles. Apple can’t do anything in the UK? Interesting. Then again they are working hard with this and that is good.
Being from Finland, you may know this better than I do, but it is my understanding that while EU legistlation says that Europe is one country for trade, it is for physical goods. For intelectual properties or music, local copyright law takes precedence. That is, you maybe able to buy a CD in German and bring it back to Finland without problems, but to download music (no physical good), Finnish copyright law regulates whether you can download from German sites or not.
I don’t think this is an EU problem as some have stated but rather an industry or record label problem. Hence the reference to “A maze of licensing contracts, music release dates that differ by country” and I even think that the “incompatible billing systems” probably refers to who gets paid when and how rather than anything on the consumer end, as I would imagine payment would be via credit card in the EU as it is in the USA. There is nothing incompatible about paying by credit card anywhere in the world that I am aware of. So its all about licensing and release dates. I am sure release dates could be worked on so I guess the real sticking point is licensing, i.e. money. And why have Apple decided to make this release at this time, obviously to put pressure on the said record industry fat cat, greedy bastards who are holding the deal up.