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Who needs a record label? Submit your own music to the iTMS with Tunecore
Are you a musician with some tracks that deserve their time in the iTMS spotlight? No one's promising you'll make the Top Songs list, but Tunecore can at least help you take a shot.While Apple offers an online application through which you can ask them to 'consider your music for the iTMS,' Tunecore (notice the hip 'beta' marking) can actually submit your music to not only the iTMS, but Rhapsody, MusicNet and Napster too. They offer what I would consider a reasonable one-time fee structure (meaning: the don't take a % of each song/album sale), and they can add your music to a number of international stores (not just the U.S.) with 'more coming soon!' One last feature to note about their service which might be music to indie musicians' ears: you keep all the rights and ownership of your music, i.e. - Tunecore a middle-man who actually remains a middle-man.This sounds like a great service. I hope more musicians can use it to hop on the digital distribution bandwagon.[thanks Andre Dupont!]
Jobs close to winning iTMS pricing war?
The New York Post is reporting that the record companies "might be on the verge" of finally throwing in the towel on the fight for variable pricing in the iTMS. The labels are reportedly pulling out all the stops, with some executives even telling the Post that they are considering allowing their label's deal to simply run out so they could pull their catalog from the store. With neither side backing down, and the subscription model not even an option in Jobs' eyes, it sounds like things might get interesting soon as every label's contract is due for renewal within the next couple of months. Oddly, the Post forgot to mention that, even with the current iTMS flat-rate $.99/song model, the labels are already raking in far more cash with each song and album sold than with traditional CDs.While Engadget sounds like they're clamoring for an iTMS subscription model that revokes your entire library the moment you decide to cancel service, I have to say I'm hopeful that Jobs can successfully stick it to the labels and make them deal with a pricing model that actual *gasp* favors consumers. Stay tuned for more iTMS drama as it unfolds.
Apple's iTunes pricing to stay at 99 cents
Apple Computer's Steve Jobs has apparently won his long-running battle with the record industry over the pricing of songs in the iTunes Music Store. Jobs has long insisted that the store's 99-cents-per-song price point should stay in place, while record companies had argued for more flexible pricing, with newer songs going for a higher price, and catalog material selling for less. The record companies had also pushed for a subscription option similar to that followed by most other online music stores. Now, according to The New York Post, the record companies have largely thrown in the towel, and will allow Apple to keep pricing flat. The victory is, however, somewhat Pyrrhic for Apple; the company makes very little money (proportionately) from iTMS, and uses the store largely as a way to lure customers into buying iPods and lock them into its FairPlay DRM, which we all know works only with one audio player. (Why do you think the French are giving them such a hard time?) Keeping pricing simple is part of Jobs' strategy to avoid losing customers to competing platforms, which have access to music stores that offer unlimited download subscription packages for as little as $8 per month. Level pricing may help stanch defections -- but it's not likely to produce any increased revenue for Apple, which is apparently just how they like it.
Patent infringement lawsuit hits Apple
In a move that screams 'I was waiting for the right time to mention it,' Burst.com yesterday filed a patent counterclaims lawsuit against Apple Computer, claiming that their iTunes, iTMS, iPod and QuickTime Streaming infringe on four of their patents.It appears that this time around Apple actually fired first. Earlier this year, Apple asked the courts to render Burst's patents invalid, which sparked this counterclaim they filed yesterday. Burst has stated that they had hoped to avoid the courts and negotiate a "reasonable license fee," but it seems that a court is exactly where these two companies will need to settle the dispute.Check out Macworld's article if you're interested in more details surrounding the case.
Beatles will sell music online, join rest of us in 21st century
iLounge is reporting that the Beatles catalog is currently being remastered in preparation for (finally) selling it through online music services (yea, plural). A Reuters article states that Neil Aspinall, a former Beatles road manager and witness in the Apple vs. Apple trademark lawsuit, is apparently working on remastering the Beatles' catalog and doesn't think it would be right to offer downloads of the old masters, and then release the remastered versions at a later date. Good call Neil.Presently, there is no ETA on when the remastering process will be finished or when the online music services could finally sell one of the most highly-anticipated online music catalogs in history. Who wants to place bets that, once the Beatles finally go digital, the catalog will be an iTunes exclusive?
Switch iTMS countries via the command line
I think we can file this one under 'Just because I can.' Erica Sadun has written a perl script that allows you to change your currently selected country in the iTunes Music Store. Both iTunes and Safari have to be open for this script to function.If you aren't a Terminal jockey you can just pop open the iTunes Music Store and choose your country from the pop up menu at the bottom of the main page, but who likes using GUI's anymore?
Free iTunes Downloads blog
Who doesn't like free stuff? I sure do, and that's why I am subscribing to the Free iTunes Downloads blog. They blog a link to the content that Apple makes available for free on iTunes, from time to time. What's not to love? I get free stuff, and I don't even have to work for it?[via Life Hacker]
March Madness on iTunes
Apple made an announcement today that will warm the hearts of all you college basketball fans. You'll be able to download condensed versions of any of the 2006 NCAA Men's Division 1 Basketball Championship games from the iTunes Music Store for $1.99 per game. The die-hards among you can purchase a Season Pass from iTMS for $19.99, which will get you condensed versions of all 63 NCAA Men's tournament games the day after each is played. If you sign up for the Season Pass, each game's highlights will be placed in your download queue the day after the game airs on CBS, and you'll be notified by email when the download is available.Full-length versions of the semifinal and championship games, as well as compilations of memorable moments from past NCAA tournaments, will also be available from iTMS.
Academy Award Nominated Short Films point to movies to be the announcement of the day
Here's my thinking: This morning in the iTMS, along with some Bravo shows, we received some Academy Award Nominated Short Films. Short films? So what? We already have Pixar shorts! you retort. Ah-ha! See! These are non-Pixar films in the iTMS. The first. Kevin Rose of Digg fame didn't post "Hey, I got the scoop from my super secret source last night on all the hardware Apple is announcing tomorrow!" as he has for the last several Apple events. This CNNMoney.com article makes sense. The announcement is going to be all about movies coming to the iTMS.After connecting the dots between these bits, I honestly don't think we'll see any new hardware announced once 9am 10am PST rolls around. I *hope* I'm wrong, but I now really think it is going to be all about movies. Also, I will be very disappointed if I am right.The only thing that kind of weighs in favor of there being some hardware announcement is that Ryan Block from Engadget received an invitation to the event and will be there today. Check over at Engadget for the nice orderly news of the announcements. If you prefer fan-driven speculation and frothing-at-the-mouth craziness, check back later today as we have a live chatcast of the event and we try to get Ryan to leak info to us simultaneously with his feeding the info to Engadget, i.e. signal to noise issues; you've been warned ;-)
Free Pilot of NBC's Conviction on iTMS
To promote their new show about the cases and lives of NY Assistant District Attorneys, NBC is offering the pilot episode of Conviction as a free download from the iTMS [direct iTMS link]. There's also a free music video by The Gabe Dixon Band and a free behind-the-scenes infomercial forlook at the new drama. It's cranked out by the creator of Law & Order, so if you like those type of shows, make sure you check it out.I wish there were a show called Anarchy & Chaos.... that's a show I'd watch.
Apple removing the iTunes phone 100 song cap?
I can neither confirm nor deny the legitimacy of this, but TUAW reader Jake sent us a tip with an iTMS screenshot detailing an upcoming possibility of removing the 100 song cap on iTunes phones. From the screenshot it looks like Apple might soon offer the ability to purchase what I would assume to be a software upgrade to remove the software-based 100 song cap on the phone.Jake claims to have followed a number of code snippets he found in the latest iTunes update, version 6.0.3. Check out his post for the full details on the steps he took, and check out the actual page in the iTMS. For now, however, I don't know anyone with a ROKR who could take this one step further. If anyone can confirm this page in the iTMS is real, is brave enough to plug their ROKR in and click OK, feel free to sound off. If this is true, it could be a sign that Apple and Motorola are finally listening to the market and removing a silly limitation that should never have existed in the first place. One can only hope.
Apple adds Comedy genre to iTMS, or: why I'm going broke
Apple has sealed my death sentence by adding an all-inclusive Comedy genre to the iTunes Music Store. I call myself a dead man because this top-level genre covers everything from audio and video content to audiobooks from all the big names, and as soon as my fiancé finds out how much I'll be spending in the ITMS from here on out, I fear my days are numbered. Highlighted names and comedians include Lewis Black (a personal fav), the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, Chris Rock and the Family Guy Live in Vegas album. Laugh it up boys and girls.[via iLounge]
Widescreen iPod video is next?
TUAW is on the case, letting us know that the latest Apple rumor is a 3.5" touchscreen-enabled media player. The mockup pictured here is from Rainy Day Magazine. We've been waiting for a widescreen video iPod for a while, but TUAW doesn't expect it till the end of the year if at all. I just want to know if they'll let me download 720p versions of Lost from iTMS.
iTunes 6.0.2: Do Not Auto Delete podcasts
The most recent update to iTunes (6.0.2) brought a minor addition that podcast fans have been drooling over for quite some time now: the ability to customize the auto deletion of podcasts. As you can see in the accompanying image, if you right click a podcast in iTunes, you now have a new option near the bottom of the context menu: "Do Not Auto Delete." This can override any settings you've enabled to clean out podcasts after X number of episodes, which can be handy for hanging onto episodes of things like podcast novels such as Ancestor (iTMS link) and EarthCore (iTMS link). Since not all podcasts are time-sensitive episodes about 'what's going on this week,' it's nice to see this flexible level of podcast management arriving in iTunes.
How much would it cost to only watch shows from iTunes
Matt Jacobs pondered that question and he even went to the trouble of crunching the numbers. He compares the cost of his current cable subscription to downloading shows from iTunes 'ala carte' and the price difference is quite shocking. He is currently spending about $700 a year for cable, and if he were to switch to iTunes only it would cost about $1100. That is a pretty big difference, not to mention that you can't exactly channel surf on iTunes and stumble on a new show.
SportsCenter ads now free on the iTunes Music Store
First the SportsCenter ads were in iTunes and going for $1.99 a pop, which was a little silly because you could watch the whole thing as a preview. Then they were mysteriously gone, and now they are back and free (iTunes link). This is great because these ads really are quite funny, but who in their right mind would pay $1.99 for a 30 second commercial?Thanks, jbelkin.
iTunes in Germany: Is it the most popular?
Sales reports from Germany's iTMS show that there were 15.5 million songs sold through the service in 2005. T-Online's MusicLoad claimed 15 million song sales as well, but included free downloads in their estimate unlike Apple.What shocked me more than those fairly close figures is the figure that the iTMS accounts for 80 percent of all legal downloads in the world. Following high tax levies on digital music downloads, devices and blank CD/DVD's in Europe, it's a wonder people don't just pirate everything. A highly contested new tax on media playing devices in Switzerland is set to go into effect on March 1st.In other German news, I sure hope that Germany will gain some Apple stores this year as rumored. It would be handier for me to be able to step into an Apple Store to drool over all the new releases in person, rather than virtually.
Norway Ombudsman looks at iTunes TOS and cries foul
You know why DRM sucks? Because it makes it possible for Apple to do naughty things like change the ways you can use your iTunes Music Store tunes after you've purchased the songs / videos. If you didn't know about it, you should really take a long read of the iTMS Terms of Service. It looks like someone in Norway has noticed and found it to be supremely problematic: "The Consumer Council of Norway find the terms to be unbalanced and highly in favour of iTunes as one party in the entered agreement. . . . The consumer is granted few or no rights while iTunes provides itself with several unfair rights according to Waterhouse."So now, the TOS is up for review. I'd like to think Norway will slap iTunes down and it will lead to a loosening of the TOS across the globe, but considering how Apple's current poor support of Europe lags behind support in the U.S., I seriously doubt that Steve Jobs is very concerned by this review.
Top networks make $1.44 per iTunes download
I, for one, am glad that at least some in the entertainment industry 'get' the idea that people are willing to pay for content that they can download to their computers. According to this article NBC, and other top networks, are earning $1.44 from each download of their shows (Apple pockets the other $.55). This is comparable to what the networks make on DVD box sets, and actually more than they make thanks to advertising (though not all of NBC's shows are on the iTunes Music Store, and download numbers don't match up with the number of people watching shows on TV, yet).It is a brave new world we are entering into, folks, and Apple is in a great position. Here's hoping they don't screw it up.
MTV Show "Laguna Beach" now in the iTMS
Season One of MTV's Laguna Beach reality show has been added to the iTMS. This apparently is the first MTV show to appear on the iTunes Music Store, and perhaps hints at a larger partnership between Apple and MTV. You can find the show by doing a search in the TV category in the iTMS. There has been no official word from MTV about other shows that may be added in the near future.Drop me a line when Pimp My Ride shows up in the iTMS. That's definitely worth the 1.99 an episode.Update: Apparently there is new Comedy Central content on the iTMS as of today as well. This update includes South Park, Drawn Together, and Best of Comedy Central Stand-up. Rock! [thanks Ruben Santiago and Young!][via iLounge]
