“Apple boasts about putting 10,000 songs in music fans’ pockets, but disgruntled British iTunes Music Store customers say Steve Jobs’ service just doesn’t measure up,” Robert Andrews reports for Wired News. “Jobs last week fronted a high-profile European launch for the popular download service, but was forced to go live without dozens of key artists such as The Strokes and The White Stripes, after falling out with the continent’s acclaimed independent labels.”
“Negotiations broke down on the eve of the debut, and Apple still hasn’t been able to offer an online licensing deal deemed acceptable to the indies, which make up a quarter of all European music sales,” Andrews reports. “The Association of Independent Music, which represents 820 U.K. labels, does not want its members to commit to the three-year, fixed-income deal it said is on the table.”
“Angered, many consumers have turned the iTunes software against its maker in a public demonstration against the shortage. Using the music service’s built-in playlist-sharing feature, they have created iMixes with titles like ‘iTunes needs more indies!’ Other users have used the song-ratings facility, designed to let listeners score each others’ taste in tunes, to vote the protest mixes to the very top of the [UK] iMix chart — an embarrassing marker of discontent,” Andrews writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’ll all work out, we hope. An aside (we’re just wondering), how “independent” can you be if you belong to an “association” that represents and negotiates for 820 labels as one?