So theoretically, YouTube now allows purchasing of EMI and Universal tracks via iTunes or Amazon. The idea is that if you're watching a video with a music track, you'll be able to easily download that song from either one of those stores. Sounds simple enough, right?
Except for the life of me, I can't figure out how to test this out.
The YouTube blog says:
Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features. Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products -- like songs, books, and movies -- related to the content they're watching on the site.
But I still only see the regular share links on any video posted by "universalmusicgroup" or "emirecordsuk".
Has anyone actually been able to get this to work?
I think people generally like me, but they don’t exactly hand out awards left and right. The same can’t be said for Apple; they’re constantly picking up cheers from groups all over the world. For example, our favorite computer company nabbed a quartet quintet of commendations from the British Technology Awards last week.
The awards, which are based on votes from computer magazine readers and the general public, are given in a baker’s dozen of different categories, ranging from Best Kids Technology to Retailer of the Year. The iPhone topped four categories: Best Mobile Technology, Most Stylish Technology, Gadget of the Year, and Technological Innovation of the Year while iTunes won Best Music Technology. Other winners included Google Maps as Most Indispensable Technology and the Toyota Prius as Greenest Technology.
Well, that’s a whole lot more awards than I’ve received in my life. Maybe we just need some more specific categories. How about Best Mac Blogger in a Red Sox Cap? I think I could totally swing that one.
Update: Hey kids, don’t blog while tired. Because it makes you forget how to count.
[via Macworld UK]
As if there weren't enough third-tier iTunes competitors out there, Italian social networking startup Dada (half owned by Sony Music) is now offering the entire Universal catalog, in addition to the Sony catalog, at two-thirds the price of iTunes -- that is, $10 for 15 tracks. Further, the company offers over-the-air downloads of DRM-free tracks available both as music tracks and as ringtones. The downside? That $10 is a monthly subscription fee, which gives you a "budget" of songs--and it doesn't roll over to the following month, so if you don't buy enough, you're potentially losing money.
Did Universal forget that its previous attempt at a music store failed miserably? Let's not forget to mention that Dell, Nokia (which isn't doing so good these days), MySpace, Amazon and everyone else had tried this strategy before. Have any of them gotten anywhere close to where iTunes is?
What part of "number one music retailer" doesn't it understand?
*sighs*
[via TG Daily]
The battles in the digital video market make the wrangling in the music market look downright tame. You may have seen elsewhere that Real announced Windows-only software that can—in their estimation—legally rip DVDs to your hard drive. We covered a similar program, Drive-in last year.
These programs’ claim to legitimacy is that, unlike similar software like Mac the Ripper and Handbrake, they don’t circumvent the CSS encryption on the discs. Rather they make a bit-by-bit copy (encryption included), and they license DVD playback technology so that they essentially become a DVD player that can play back disc images on the hard drive. Furthermore, they each lock the ripped DVDs with more copy-protection to prevent users from sharing them with their friends.
Real figured it wouldn’t be long before the MPAA was knocking down their doors anyway, so they decided to take the preemptive step of suing the movie studios. Undeterred, the studios went ahead and sued them right back.
Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on here.
Continue reading "RealDVD vs. MPAA: whoever wins, we lose"
Today, the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington DC is set to meet to decide whether or not the royalty rate for music publishers would go up from nine cents to 15 cents per track.
As a consequence of that possible increase, an Apple VP recently told Fortune that this move would force Apple to operate the store as a loss, and thus the company would rather close it down. The Financial Times doesn't buy it.
The FT's Kevin Allison points out:
1. Apple's market power means it still has an advantage in pricing talks.I don't buy it either. iTunes is a loss leader to sell iPods and iPhones. You know that, we know that, everyone knows it. Apple has profited between $2 bil and $3 bil in each of the last few quarters. Is Cupertino honestly saying that a small loss on the iTunes store would seriously impact its bottom line significantly enough to cut off the main way that people get tasty stuff on their profitable iPods?2. Apple could appeal to a higher power to have an unfavourable CRB decision overruled.
3. Apple has already begun to embrace variable pricing on the iTunes store.
For someone who's blind though, using the iTunes Store or an iPod might not be quite so easy a feat. However, Apple is taking steps to fix that in iTunes and iTunes U. The Attorney General for Massachusetts, Martha Coakley, arranged a deal with Apple, Inc. to make iTunes more accessible for blind people who use accessibility software to help them (such as programs that read the screen's contents out loud).
Universal Access features are a part of Leopard, and the new iPod nano features a "Spoken Menu" option, but this agreement should help close accessibility gaps in the iTunes Store too. Although online retailers are expected to provide accomodations for customers with disabilities, just like their physical counterparts, gaps still remain.
The deadline for making iTunes more accessible to screen readers is June 2009, and includes plans to improve the accessibility of iTunes U. (See, everyone complains when their professor tries to turn iTunes into schoolwork by posting stuff to the University section of the store, but no one thinks about what it would be like if you couldn't get to that information for reasons beyond your control).
I like this tidbit: "Coakley said a lot of industries are working to make the Internet more accessible because they know it's good business to give more people a way to buy your product."
And here I thought making Internet-related items easier for everyone to access was just something one should do. You know, because it's the right thing to do.
So while we already knew that AC/DC was taking its tracks elsewhere, we never knew exactly why. Last year, in an unprecedented move, the band took all its marbles and went straight into the arms of Verizon (WTF?).
It raises the question: despite iTunes's vast success, why would AC/DC continue to spurn Apple? Don't they like making money?
Apparently, it's because of the music, according to Angus Young, the lead guitarist for AC/DC told The Telegraph: "We don't make singles, we make albums," adding:
"We believe the songs on any of our albums belong together. If we were on iTunes, we know a certain percentage of people would only download two or three songs from the album. We don't think that represents us musically."
So there you go, folks. Clearly every other band on iTunes is a sellout and is compromising their artistic integrity. Riiiiight. And Verizon is all about the artist.
Gail Zappa, the widow of legendary song-writer / compositional wizard, Frank Zappa, has a serious problem with iTunes and other digital music services. It all has to do with—you guessed it—the lossy and overly compressed nature of the MP3 medium. She argues that her husband's music was meant to be heard at a certain quality, and that compressed, it's just not the same. And so she's joining the anti-MP3 club that so many classic artists seem to embrace.
"Let me say it in the simplest way. My job is to make sure that Frank Zappa has the last word in terms of anybody's idea of who he is. And his actual last word is his music."
And his music was not intended for distribution as 128 kbps MP3s. As a musician, I can certainly understand where Gail Zappa is coming from. However, the music industry is still an industry, and its primary interest is in moving units. Most people know that MP3s offer lower quality than CDs, but they are willing to make that sacrifice in the name of convenience, and the labels have no problem providing this. Neither do most artists.
Ultimately, the consumer should be given the chance to decide the level of quality they want for their music. The average MP3 downloader who listens to music mostly while driving, working out, or doing other tasks, probably isn't missing out on much by using MP3s. Audiophiles, or others who put great emphasis on the quality of their music, will probably buy CDs, or download the music in a lossless format like .flac or .ogg.
To draw a parallel to visual art, it can be said that MP3s do for music what posters and calendars do for art. When you buy a $7 poster of a painting, you're missing out on a lot of the fine detail of the original, or even of a high quality print. However, the poster is cheap, convenient, and you can still appreciate the painting at a base level. Plus, it helps pay the artist.
I will say this: in an age where massive, high definition movies are available for download, iTunes and other music vendors need to step up and release music in a lossless format. There's no reason I should be able to see every pore of sweat on Mark Walberg's face, but not be able to hear a Norah Jones track at the quality it was meant to be heard.
So now that I've moved (temporarily) to Europe (I'm going to be teaching English in Lyon, France for the next seven months), I guess you could say that I'm MacUser's official European correspondent. That means that I should be on the lookout for all EU-related Apple news, hrm?
This week, the continent is abuzz with the fact that iTunes Germany will be adding German-language movies in the next few weeks, according to a German site, Wiwo. That marks the first non-English movies available overseas, which is pretty rad. Earlier this year, Germany got some TV shows via iTunes too.
No word yet as to which films will be available, or if they're going to film a new ending from Lola Rennt incorporating this incredible news, but either way, it's a safe bet that French, Spanish, Italian and other foreign language movies are coming soon.
[via IGM]
