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The Insanely Great Songs Apple Won't Let You Hear

Posted by Zonk on Thu Jan 25, 2007 09:25 AM
from the let's-hear-it-for-blumchen dept.
FunkeyMonk writes "Slate.com has an article by Paul Collins explaining that the iTunes music store has thousands of tracks that you can't buy in the U.S. From the article: 'The iTunes Music Store has a secret hiding in plain sight: Log out of your home account in the page's upper-right corner, switch the country setting at the bottom of the page to Japan, and you're dropped down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of great Japanese bands that you've never even heard of. And they're nowhere to be found on iTunes U.S.' The article goes on to mention a few workarounds if you want to purchase foreign tunes. But this brings up a good point — why shouldn't iTunes be the great mythical omniscient music repository where all the world's music is available instantly? Is this simply a marketing decision?"
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  • Licensing, licensing, licensing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by barcarolle (581253) on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:27AM (#17751198)
    This is just the way the music business works. Apple can't change the fact that labels only license to certain territories. Just like you can go into a music store in Japan and buy thousands of CDs you can't buy elsewhere, Apple's iStore is contractually bound to operate the same way.
  • Nothing new... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sugapablo (600023) on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:28AM (#17751216)
    (http://www.sugapablo.net/)
    Back in the 60's, British and US releases had different songs on them.

    British had "With the Beatles" while an album with slightly different tracks called "Meet the Beatles" came out in the US.

    The British version of "Are You Experienced?" by Hendrix had additional songs, such as "Red House" which the record company felt would go over better in Britain than the US, even though it was a straight blues track and blues was born in the US. *shrugs*

    So while in the age of the internet, this seems silly, it's nothing new.
    • Re:Nothing new... by hackstraw (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:10AM
      • Re:Nothing new... by butlerdi (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:44AM
      • Re:Nothing new... by NekSnappa (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:02AM
        • Re:Nothing new... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by hackstraw (262471) * on Thursday January 25 2007, @11:17AM (#17752998)
          (http://www.spamgourmet.com/)
          Actually I remember my older sisters having boxes of 45 rpm singles. It wasn't until cassettes and 8-track became predominate in the early 70's that you almost had to buy the whole collection of songs that comprised an album.

          Singles were a marketed item until the advent of the CD. Now that we have digital formats, the record labels simply don't want to sell singles at all. They even fought Apple, the leader in MP3 player sales, to "let" them sell MP3 singles, and then would only let them do it at a high price with DRM. Buying a Beatles single is still either impossible or very limited.

          An interesting piece of trivia here. Albums, with respect to music, mean a collection (like a photo album). Back "in the day" an album was a few 78 RPM discs bundled together. It wasn't until the advent of the 12" LP (long play) 33.3 RPM discs that an album was able to fit on one consumer playable media. That is why albums, records, vinyl, etc are synonymous.

          [ Parent ]
    • Re:Nothing new... by Garse Janacek (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @12:30PM
      • Re:Nothing new... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Teddy Beartuzzi (727169) on Thursday January 25 2007, @01:27PM (#17755546)
        (Last Journal: Saturday January 27 2007, @03:18PM)
        One of my favourite stories...

        Three generations are gathered together at a reunion. The youngest is preparing dinner, a fine potroast. She takes the roast, dutifully cuts off each end of the roast as taught years ago by her mom, and puts it in the pan. She asks her mother "Mom, I never really understood that part, why do we always cut off the ends of the roast? It's perfectly good meat we're just throwing away."

        And the mother responds, "I don't know really, I always do it because that's the way Grandma taught *me*". So they decide to go out into the living room, and ask Grandma. And she replies... "I used to cut the ends off so the damn roast so it would fit inside the pan, you idiots".

        It is still the same old behaviour, but the physical constraints that legitimized that behaviour are now gone, and the behaviour should change accordingly. ;)

        I see this all the time in various ways. Online stores, software, you name it, various industries or designs clinging to behaviours that used to have physical limitations still doing things the same old way, even though they no longer have to.

        My wife and I just raise our eyebrows and whisper "potroast" to each other.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Nothing new... by mpe (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @02:14PM
    • Re:Nothing new... by jafac (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @06:03PM
    • Re:Nothing new... by onemorechip (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @12:12PM
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • Devil's in the Contracts (Score:5, Informative)

    by necro81 (917438) on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:30AM (#17751248)
    (Last Journal: Wednesday March 07 2007, @05:30PM)
    One possible reason why that insanely great band from Japan (love the hyperbole, by the way) can't have its songs show up in the U.S. version of iTMS is that the label that produced the music hasn't licensed Apple to sell it in the U.S. I'm not sure why that would be, but there are all kinds of idiotic details in music contracts. There may also be weird export and tariff issues at stake - different country, different laws. Ever notice that the import version of a CD on amazon tends to be 2x-3x more expensive than the domestic release, if you can even find it?
  • Isn't it the record labels doing it? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dorzak (142233) <dorzak@ g m a i l.com> on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:30AM (#17751250)
    (Last Journal: Wednesday November 28 2001, @12:22AM)
    Isn't it the record labels limited things?

    I seem to have seen a post about that at some point on Apple's discussions boards.

    From that, iTunes works with the whoever hold the distributions rights in that country. If those bands don't have a U.S. distributor.

    One band I like "Growing Old Disgracefully" recently made the jump from the U.K., to the U.S. iTunes store by working with CD Baby.
    • by KFW (3689) * on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:37AM (#17751386)
      Exactly. Apple/iTunes is an easy target, but they're obliged by their contract. This is the same reason that iTunes was available in different countries at different times - it took a while to negotiate the contracts (even in the EU each country's music distributor had to be negotiated with seperately). Honestly, do you think Apple wants to turn away money? I don't believe iTunes is the only store with this issue. So while there are a lot of legitimate complaints about iTunes (esp. the DRM, which isn't entirely driven by the studios), this article was just a cheap shot at an easy target.
      /K
      [ Parent ]
  • Music marketing doesn't understand ubiquity by NixieBunny (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @09:30AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Unfortunately, but hardly marketing (Score:3, Informative)

    by Holmwood (899130) on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:30AM (#17751274)
    Music is licensed on a per-country basis. Often, different organizations/people hold the rights in different countries. A Canadian band, for instance, might keep (or buy back) Canadian rights, but a major label would have the US rights, and a Europeans subsidiary of that label -- or another label altogether -- might have the European rights.

    Selling all music globally is something no one's ready for legally, and probably won't be for years, given the glacial rate at which the *AA's seem to be evolving to embrace new technologies and opportunities.

    Holmwood.
  • It's probably a legal decision. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by foxtrot (14140) on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:32AM (#17751290)
    Apple has contracts with various record houses that allow Apple to sell their music.

    Sadly, while the Internet is world-wide and country borders are merely speedbumps, the legal world hasn't figured that one out yet...

    So their deals with Japanese record houses probably only allow Apple to sell their music in Japan.

    Seems short-sighted to me. If you're making a deal with the guys who sell 80% of the online music sold, why not let them sell to as many people as possible instead of holding back rights? You get a cut on each...
  • It's the licensing, stupid by Maury Markowitz (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @09:34AM
  • For an iTunes J-Pop/J-Rock fix (Score:5, Informative)

    by realinvalidname (529939) on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:34AM (#17751330)
    (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/1045)

    JList/JBox [jbox.com] has been selling Japanese iTunes [jbox.com] cards for some time, and frequently advertise them in their ads in magazines like NewType USA. Right next to the hentai/bishoujo games and Domo-kun plushies.

  • Uh, it's the Record Companies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MacBoy (30701) on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:36AM (#17751368)
    I mean come on! Do you really think it has anything to do with Apple itself not letting you hear the song? Oh yes, Apple engages in musical censorship. It's the record companies, people. If a band doesn't have a record distribution deal in the US, then guess what! you can't buy their music on iTunes either.
  • why shouldn't iTunes be the great mythical omniscient music repository where all the world's music is available instantly? Is this simply a marketing decision?

    It *should* be a simple, global, find-it-and-buy-it repository. Unfortunately, the way that copyright has been worked, the right to sell a particular work (music, movie, tv show) only extends to a country's borders. If you want to sell that work in another nation, you have to somehow acquire the rights to sell there as well.

    This used to be a real problem trying to buy import albums and CDs. If a particular overseas-only album had a local rights-owner who didn't have the title in print, that rights-owner could prevent you from importing the CD for purchase. (Naturally, they could also prevent you from importing if they *did* have it in print, but generally then you wouldn't want the import in the first place.) This didn't always happen in practice, but it did make things more difficult at times.

    Today, they try to restrict trans-national media purchases via things like region coding.

    Honestly, I think this is another of the ridiculously outdated aspects of copyright law that really needs to change. In my mind, if I purchase a legally-produced copy of a CD or DVD (or iTunes download), then somehow, somewhere, somewhen the artist was compensated for that purchase. Maybe not directly, and maybe not for that exact purchase, but at some point the artist's rights to sell the track were transfered to someone else who got money from me. It shouldn't matter if I'm buying a German pressed CD while visiting in Japan and holding a US passport. As long as the German CD was produced with the approval (or delegated approval) of the original artist/rights-holders, then it should be treated as legitimate and proper.

    Of course, if you've got a situation where some country is permitting the sale of tracks for which the original artists have *not* delegated their rights to whomever made the [cd, dvd, file], then that shouldn't be permitted. Certainly, this isn't what's happening in Japan, but it is sort of what happened with AllOfMP3 (or so I understand -- I haven't followed that too closely).

    I believe this is also why it's taken so long for new iTunes stores to open in new countries. It's not just a matter of arranging the financial-side of things for handling payments, currency conversions, etc., or even of getting servers and such set up for faster local access, but I bet a whole lot of it is securing the appropriate approvals from whomever "owns" the publishing rights for each track in that country.
  • No, it's a label decision. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by l-ascorbic (200822) on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:41AM (#17751474)
    It's not a big scary conspiracy. They need to be granted rights for each territory by the labels. They evidently don't have US licences for all the japanese stuff. But if you prefer you can pretend that the government is stopping Apple corrupt the nation's youth with cheesy J-pop.
  • Bollywood Music by xRelisH (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @09:42AM
  • YMCK! by Apocalypse111 (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @09:42AM
  • Is this simply a marketing decision?" by IWantMoreSpamPlease (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @09:43AM
  • I wanted to buy "American Pie" by hsmith (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @09:49AM
  • Yes, it's licensing by iainl (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @09:51AM
  • how is this limiting choice? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fermion (181285) on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:52AM (#17751636)
    (Last Journal: Thursday May 03 2007, @11:34AM)
    If Borders books refuses to sell a CD, is this limiting choice? Does borders book exist as the sole music purveyor in any market? Can't a consumer just go next door and get the music from someone else? Same thing for tower records. The few times I have been to a tower, and there are none in my town, it was a fun place to shop but the indies that existed then had a better selection of non-mainstream records. At the end of they day, it is not like WalMart censoring music, which does have an effect becuase Wal Mart does strive to be the only retailer across a number of markets and demographics.

    A more accurate presentation might be that DRM and restrictive licensing is limiting the choice of music, which does have an element of truth, and Apple does bear some responsibility. But even this is far from unclear. If we are talking about music downloads, the only thing effecting music choice is the artist, not Apple. Apple certainly effects exposure, but not choice, except in the sense that one cannot choose what one does not know.

    But certainly anyone can go onto a P2P network an download music, and it will play on the iPod and work in iTunes. Any artist can go to Youtube and upload a video. If a song is insanely great, it will generate insanely great buzz, and people will hear it.

    I also wonder about the definition of insanely great music, and people expecting have such music handed to them on a gold platter. We are so used to having sanitized music spoon fed to us. The ability to download music is just going to exacerbate this problem, and lead to the increasingly sanitized of music. A better article would be how increased music delivery in destroying insanely great local music, and replacing it with moderately interesting sanitized corporate music.

  • by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve (949321) on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:53AM (#17751652)
    I know of another legal way to buy Japanese music. You can buy Japanese CDs in an English web page at
    http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/ [cdjapan.co.jp]
    I have no financial interest in this company. I am merely an occasional customer. Of course, if you are under, say, 25 years old, the idea of actually buying a CD will be anathema to you as you'll have to wait for it to arrive by mail and you'd rather slit your emo wrists than do anything that doesn't lead to instant gratification. And if you want to just buy individual tracks, this isn't the answer you were looking for either. However, if you are over 30 years old and not afflicted with ADD, this might be an option for you should want to purchase that CD that is only available in Japan. Sometimes Japanese CDs come with bonus tracks not released in other markets (usually this means the US), so hardcore fans of various Western singers/groups might be interested in Japanese CDs for that reason too.
  • Jesus, keep this shit on Digg (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2007, @09:58AM (#17751736)
    Christ, how did this one make it through? I'd expect this kind of thing on digg, but Slashdot is usually a shade better about posting uninformed hyperbole. It's not Apple that won't let you hear these so called "insanely great songs" - it's the record companies in Japan. Apple is only authorized to sell those songs to residents of Japan. It's not big, bad Apple keeping the little guy down, or some vast racketeering conspiracy by the RIAA or anything like that. It's just standard protocol - different distribution agreements for different countries. If the record companies of Japan felt like there was money to be had in selling these songs across the pond, they'd negotiate that with Apple and you'd see these songs in the US-version of the iTMS. To act all indignant because you browsed the Japanese iTMS and were not allowed to use an American credit card/gift card is just absurd. Different countries have different factors (e.g., blank media tax) to consider in distribution that make articles like this seem so uninformed and naive that it's embarrassing.
  • Duh... by whisper_jeff (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:01AM
  • All the "logical" reasons are wrong by Infonaut (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:02AM
  • Do the math... (Score:5, Funny)

    by biglig2 (89374) on Thursday January 25 2007, @10:03AM (#17751792)
    (http://biglig.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday November 19 2004, @11:48AM)
    A copy of Britney's Greatest Hits (as a random example) on the US itunes store is $8.91.
    On the UK iTunes store it is $15.75 (i.e. £7.99)
    On the Canadian store, $8.47
    New Zealand, $12.61
    etc. etc. etc.

    On the Japanese store, by the way, they don't sell it at all. Guess they saw the video for "Hit me Baby" and figured "Like the schoolgirl outfit, but needs more tentacles. Or cowbell."
  • Opportunity by Chief Camel Breeder (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:04AM
  • then use myspace music from all over.. by PermanentMarker (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:04AM
  • Canada..... DMCA by obsidianpoet (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:14AM
  • The Pillows! by casualsax3 (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:18AM
    • Re:The Pillows! by Jess (geek-chick) (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @12:46PM
  • Beyond Music (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rueger (210566) on Thursday January 25 2007, @10:21AM (#17752086)
    (http://www.threesquirrels.com/)
    The increasingly insular approach of North American media is something that goes beyond Japanese pop songs.

    In the book business it has become near impossible to convince publishers to translate non-English authors, making access to some of the planet's finest writers nearly impossible.

    Geist magazine [geist.com] out of Vancouver has had a couple of good articles looking at this phenomenon, one by Stephen Henighan [geist.com] in Issue 61, and by acclaimed writer Alberto Manguel in Issue 62.

    Henigan's article opens:

    Over dinner, I asked the Quebecoise writer Sylvie Desrosiers, the author of successful novels for both adults and younger readers, whether her books had been translated into English. "Non, pas en anglais," she said. "I've been translated into Spanish, Greek, Arabic . . ." She listed two or three other languages, then shook her head. "But not into English."

    A few weeks after Desrosiers's visit, I was one of the hosts for the Ontario tour of the Salvadoran writer Horacio Castellanos Moya. The Salvadoran edition of Moya's novel El Asco (1997)--the title is roughly translatable as Revulsion --ran through six printings in a year and earned Moya enough death threats that he moved to Germany. Now in his late forties, Moya is the best-known Salvadoran writer of his generation. His novels come out in Spanish-language editions in San Salvador, Mexico City and Barcelona; in France and Quebec he is considered a significant literary figure (he was a featured guest of the 2005 Salon du Livre in Montreal); his novels are also available in German and Italian. His work has not been translated into English.


    Manguel's article this month puts the blame squarely on the publishing houses who are increasingly market driven to publish lowest common denominator works, rather than building a catalog that stands on literary merit.

    North America lives in a cultural bubble defined by a narrow range of English language music, writing, and film. It would be a great exercise to see how iTunes handles music from Latino and Mexican artists, or in Canada from Quebec musicians.

    I'll wager that both of those groups are also underrepresented despite the considerable popularity of their work.
    • US insularity by metamatic (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @12:25PM
  • Lawyers, guns, and money by pla (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:22AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Let's reverse the roles by Tarq666 (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:27AM
  • Insanely Great Songs by dlawson (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:29AM
  • Insanely Great? by denmarkw00t (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:29AM
  • Done for the protection of the artist by hyrdra (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:32AM
  • *Sigh* More Artificial Market Restrictions by gurutechanimal (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:33AM
  • Great Japanese bands? by operagost (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:47AM
  • That's why I don't do RIAA/GEMA big labels anymore by bursch-X (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:55AM
  • armin van buuren and ayumi hamasaki by circletimessquare (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:55AM
  • And that's why someone else will get my money by _Shad0w_ (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:01AM
  • Same goes for us. by lattyware (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:04AM
  • I would hate a "World" iTunes by amichalo (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:04AM
  • Reality by gig (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:22AM
  • OT: Music recommendation? by Experiment 626 (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:27AM
  • Why the surprise ? by Salsaman (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:30AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • How Zune handles it by aapold (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:34AM
  • It's Changing...Slowly by blueZhift (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:34AM
  • Who Really Cares by compw1zzard (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:35AM
  • Make something crappy and get free advertising! by Heddahenrik (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:39AM
  • Hmm by jasonh1234 (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:41AM
  • Same problem with "cTunes" as with "jTunes", eh? by Parker51 (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:44AM
  • I am going to try this immediately.

    For over 2 years I had exactly 4 songs in my iTunes shopping cart... songs that I really liked, but I couldn't bring myself to hand over my credit card for the DRM inhibited music. I usually buy CDs.

    So, for Christmas I received a couple of iTunes gift cards. I figured, what the heck... I'll buy the songs now and attempt to find something to strip the DRM.

    And then the catch hit me. The songs, while still in my shopping cart and still had playable samples were "no longer for sale in the iTunes US store". The songs and the albumn that they made up were no longer listed in the store by any means of searching.

    Here's the real kicker that pissed me off. These songs were only ever sold through the iTunes store. No physical store sales, no other online music stores, and I was never able to find them on any p2p services.

    Hopefully I'll now be able to purchase them. This is another perfect example of why DRM is a bad bad thing. If the company holding the keys to the DRM infected information decides to revoke them, the content can be completely lost to society.
  • WELCOME TO THE GLOBAL MARKET, USA! by brunes69 (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:54AM
  • Apple needs to become a record label itself by CheckeredFlag (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @11:59AM
  • Two Quick Points (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Paulrothrock (685079) on Thursday January 25 2007, @12:09PM (#17754024)
    (http://www.movetoiceland.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday June 02 2004, @11:02AM)

    First, this isn't "Apple" not letting you hear these things. It's the record companies and their licensing agreements. If you go into a record store in the US, do you see all these great Japanese artists? Hell no. Why? Isn't it just as easy to ship them over as it is to ship over US artists? It's not Apple limiting these things, it's the damned recording companies.

    It's the same reason that TV shows on iTunes US aren't available on iTunes UK and vice versa. There are ancient licensing agreements (well, ancient in terms of the internet) between the media companies that Apple has to respect if you want any content on iTunes at all. Apple could have gone the eMusic route and filled the iTunes store with independent artists, but who would start doing that?

    Finally, Apple's not preventing you from hearing these songs on your computer or your iPod. You're free to buy them on CDs and rip them into your computer. And you can even rip them in MP3 format with no DRM! Amazing!

    It's natural for people to beat up on Apple because that's who's dealing with them when they don't get what they want. But that's just human nature. I used to work as a bus boy in a restuarant. I've seen people scream at waiters for the cooks screwing up their order. I've seen people yell at cashiers for something they bought there not working correctly. Most people are stupid. It's up to those of us who aren't to

    • Not stupid by catbutt (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @03:57PM
  • Insanely great music you can own for free, legally by FunkLord84 (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @12:11PM
  • Same thing for US store by zorglubxx (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @12:43PM
  • Tell me about it by chord.wav (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @12:45PM
  • by kilodelta (843627) on Thursday January 25 2007, @12:47PM (#17754712)
    Quite often I'll hear a song on last.fm that I like and go on iTunes to buy it. Come to find out it's an iTunes UK offering and my account won't let me download it. This is the major problem with the music industry. Music is now international, not regional. The industry hasn't adapted yet.
  • slate, wasn't slate an MS owned? by ajdowntown (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @12:56PM
  • Licensing restrictions to create different markets by sideswipe76 (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @01:11PM
  • I just took a look... by Mongoose (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @03:08PM
  • Viral Reporting..... by IHC Navistar (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @03:27PM
  • Piracy, the better choice by Meneth (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @03:56PM
  • It's only the artists that can fix this by flinxmeister (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @04:39PM
  • great japanese bands? by porky_pig_jr (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @04:52PM
  • Countries outside the USA. Fact or fiction? by JustNiz (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @05:18PM
  • How many product managers? by metachimp (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @07:29PM
  • Internet radio by dbcad7 (Score:2) Friday January 26 2007, @01:55AM
  • This just happened to me by c64cryptoboy (Score:2) Friday January 26 2007, @10:15AM
  • Why doesn't Apple cure global warming? by Swift2001 (Score:1) Friday January 26 2007, @05:09PM
  • Just region coding by another name by RabidMutantStargoat (Score:1) Saturday January 27 2007, @03:04AM
  • try using it from spain.... by Astun (Score:1) Monday January 29 2007, @07:36AM
  • Oh BOO-HOO-HOO by IntergalacticWalrus (Score:2) Monday January 29 2007, @01:38PM
  • Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) (613870) on Thursday January 25 2007, @10:00AM (#17751752)
    (Last Journal: Monday January 06 2003, @10:36PM)
    Yes it is
    No it isn't. Complex webs of contracts have been set up. You might imagine the studio has complete control over its tracks but it doesn't. A simple example: They may have signed various types of contract with a variety of distributors all over the world. If studio X has given distributor Y exclusive rights to song Z in country W for a certain time then X might not be able to sell the song on iTunes because Apple then becomes a competing distributor to Y breaking the exclusivity contract. Sure, X might want to sell the song, but it's not in Y's interest to let them do so.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Question by blowdart (Score:1) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:17AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Re:Marketing? No. Legals by jonwil (Score:2) Thursday January 25 2007, @10:19AM
  • 29 replies beneath your current threshold.