Apple Launches iTunes Affiliate Program

An anonymous user writes, "Apple has launched an affiliate program for their iTunes music store that earns participants 5% commission. Affiliates can link directly to songs, albums, and artists, as well as apply to the Apple Store affiliate program to sell hardware. It costs nothing to join and people that sign up prior to September 15 can win one of five free iPod minis. Apple has also assembled a handy FAQ."

So...

[odano]

This is basically a 5% discount on all iTunes music?

Recursive marketing sucks. A lot.

[0x0d0a]

I thought I had just finished with everyone under the sun trying to ram gmail tokens down my throat, and now I have to start over with the damn iTunes thing? Argh!

People are going to be suckers for recursive marketing until the market gets saturated.

Re:FAQ?

[MedHead]

I too was confused with the FAQ, but for a different reason: there are no banner measurements given. I don't want to have to sign an agreement that gives me certain responsibilities without knowing all my tools at my disposal beforehand. Does "creative" mean text-based ads similar to Google's? Does "banner" mean 88x31 pixels, or 500x150 pixels? If I'm going to have to follow all sorts of rules just to see what I can promote on my website, forget it. I don't want to take the risk of Apple emailing me about my lack of participation. Maybe I'm being too paranoid?

Here comes the spam!

[crucini]

Affiliate programs seem to bring out the slimiest in people, whether it's email spam or spammy slashdot comments [slashdot.org]. Won't it be wonderful to search for some obscure song on google and get a vast wasteland of affiliate link-spam pages all pointing to Apple?

I thought Apple had more class.

(Please, Apple fanboys, don't mod this down out of reflexive groupthink. Because that's lame.)

Re:So...

[MedHead]

2.2. Affiliate agrees not to make any representations, warranties or other statements concerning Apple, Apple's site, any of Apple's products or services, or Apple's site policies, except as expressly authorized by the Engagement.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/terms.html [apple.com]

Would anyone mind explaining this to me? I'm not a lawyer, so I can't be sure... but from what I can see, doesn't this mean that as an affiliate, we are not allowed to say we like or dislike a song to which is being linked?

Looking forward to it

[tobes]

There seem to be a lot of complaints about this so far, but I for one am really looking forward to it. I've been linking to the itms extensively for about a year now (just cause it's very useful for my users). It's going to be great to start getting some revenue!

Personally, I think the iTunes Music Store is a great platform for finding new music. Anyone can make links to it and they've got tons of sample streams. Hopefully this move indicates that Apple wants third parties to provide the navigation innovation while they continue to act as a platform and catalog.

I don't quite understand...

[huchida]

From the FAQ I couldn't figure out how this works. If a visitor clicks the banner on your site, does that open their copy of iTunes and take them to the store? After all there is no iTunes store site to be directed to...

If that's the case, this sounds more like a way to get PC users to install iTunes than to actually sell songs. A bit on the sleazy side, isn't it Apple?

I do see a benefit for independant artists, assuming they can get their music in the iTunes music store in the first place (how does that work, anyway? Is anyone rejected?) Previously the best they could hope for is to direct you to Amazon, or, worse, tell you how to mail-order their music.

Re:Beginning of a Revolution?

[tobes]

I'm already doing pretty much this exact thing on Musicmobs.

Also positive possibilities

[spectrokid]

I guess it wouldn't be too hard for OS projects to use this as a source of revenue. By your music through Mozilla and support your favourite browser while you are at it!

Re:Terms of service word count: 22,760

[nmoog]

I don't know, I only got up to the bit that said "..a legal resident of the United States.."

Re:Here comes the spam!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lyric sites will probably be perceived by Apple (with "help" from the *AAs) as peddling illegal wares (the lyrics are copyrighted - *AA: buy the sheet music) and will probably be rejected.

To me, this stance is more mind boggling than any others that the *AAs hold.

Re:My Very own IPOD compatable Music Store.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lets say I copied all the available tunes titles from the itunes store"

But why copy, when there's already phptunes [linuxpowered.com]?

Re:My Very own IPOD compatable Music Store.

[tonywestonuk]

Yes, why not!.... It could be possible to dynamically update your website using phptunes, so (in theory) your online music site will not need any maintenance!

Re:But Context is everything...

[g3000]

Talk about context, if you're a band and you push people to iTunes to buy your album*, I suppose you benefit from your album selling, but you are also an affiliate! Fairly obvious use, but still interesting.

*As The Cure does [thecure.com] (and they push not just to iTunes, but other services).

Bloggers

[xombo]

This will be great for bloggers, I'm already scoring a few bucks a month from Amazon for this sort of thing, but a live list of what I'm listening to could be absolutely devine for affiliate commissions.

Re:Beginning of a Revolution?

[cowscows]

I don't think the best part about all this will be big sites dedicated to providing links to lots of music. Sites like that already exist, and the good ones have made names for themselves.

What I find more interesting about this is that it can provide an easy way for people to provide useful music links on their personal websites. For example, I read a lot of different blogs every day, some written by people I know, some written by people I've never met. But most of those people think and write intelligently enough that I feel their opinions are worthwhile. And so if they recommend some music, I might just go check it out, because it might be something cool, something besides the normal radio play, and because doing it through itunes will be very easy.

I'll get a nice quick preview of the particular song, it'll be easy to find other songs by the artist if I like it, and if I choose to buy it, I can get it right then and there, and toss a little money back to the blog author as thanks.

iTunes Idea I'd rather see

[NYTrojan]

Here's what I'd really like to see out of iTunes. How about an internet radio client. It would be a small program you install... you could tune in to several different stations (maybe some indie stuff too, to give individuals who let itunes sell their music some play). On the face of this program would be a 'buy this song now' button. Ever hear something you like but don't know who's singing it or forget later? Not a problem now. You can purchase it instantly.

Think about it, you could finally have individuals getting play and selling their music without the big record lables. iTunes is the one system that is already big enough to pull this off I think.

Re:FAQ?

[fermion]

Given current practices, "creative" means a web bug linked to 2o7. As much as I like apple, they seem way into the tracking of users as they move around the internet. I would think this would a prime opportunity for them to collect more marketing data.

Just because you are parniod does not mean people are not actully out to get you.

Re:Affiliate vs. Artist Share

[dasmegabyte]

I guess part of the idea here is that the artist can now get 15-19% (I heard more like a quarter per song, btw...I don't trust downhillbattle's numbers) by pushing people to iTunes through their websites.

Re:But Context is everything...

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

What this really makes me think of is LiveJournal and other blogs. Lots of people seem to like sticking in their mood and whatever music they're listening to at the top of every blog entry. Now imagine them making their "Current Song:" line in every entry an iTMS link to the song. Any money they make off it is theirs to keep on a free blog site, since they don't have to pay for hosting, and people can earn money just by keeping a journal of the inane details of their everyday life, as long as someone actually reads it. People could even make money off each other, buying songs through each other's referrals and getting the money kicked back to their friend.

Re:So...

[macdaddy]

The slick thing to do would be to create some sort of automated system where the visitor could provide the artist and title of a song to a form on the affiliate's website. The form would spawn a CGI that would query the ITMS website for the specific song and then provide the affiliate-enabled link to the visitor as output. That way the affiliate wouldn't be limited to just the songs they took the time to link to and wouldn't have to field email from visitors that ask for song links. It would all be automated. That would be really slick.

Referrer program on hardware and software?

[macdaddy]

How about Apple setting up a referral program from their hardware and software? It could be like a customer loyalty referral program on complete systems like what your Dodge dealer might do for people that refer new customers to the dealership (mine kicks back $50/referral). Apple could send me $50 or 5% of the purchase price of whatever my referral bought. That would be nice. The same goes from lesser hardware. If I refer people to the iPod Mini via my website and they buy one, I'd like a kickback. I think a referral program like this would be a very good thing. I'm all for it.