Jun 15
Itunes Music Europe launched… well sort of
2004 at 05.37 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Apple just announced in London the immediate availability of the iTunes Music Store in Europe. Well sort of because for starters it is only available right now in the UK, France and Germany. It was to be expected that Belgium would not be included.
According to Apple the other countries will have to wait until October. Prices for the UK are 79 pence and 7,79 for an album. In France and Germany prices are 0,99 Euro and 9,99 Euro for an album. Prices are not that bad and better then the rumors predicted.
The number one online music store in the world has finally come to the UK, France and Germany," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "With a huge catalogue of over 700,000 songs, breakthrough prices of just 0.99 Euro and 0.79 per song and seamless integration with Apple's wildly popular iPod, we think this is the digital music store that Europe has been waiting for.
Is it really so difficult to set this up? I know for sure this isn't Apple's fault because if it were up to them they would launch in all the EU countries. This proves only one thing. The people who are running this show such as Marcel Heymans the director from IFPI Belgium for example are not qualified for this task. He is the one who has to get the labels on one line instead of arguing about prices etc. The only thing that this guy is good at is bitching about the fact that people are losing jobs because of the illegal downloads and that sales are declining. Well wake up Mr. IFPI I want to pay but you don't let me! So get your ass out of that chair and fulfill your task like you're supposed to.
This should have been a done deal ages ago. From the moment that it was clear that iTunes was a success he should have been running his feet off and making sure that everybody agreed and that Belgium was part of this launch. This waiting game is starting to piss me off... I'm sure I'm not the only one. Sorry but I needed to vent...
4served
1
So Mr. Heymans won’t be joining you for lunch anytime soon?
I understand your frustration, I think. Beaurocrats have a special place in Hell… maybe his will have 2400 dialup on a Windows 3.1 box.
Hang on, iTunes is worth it when it gets there!
dave
2
Couldn’t agree more with the last paragraph :(
3
Couldn’t agree more! I’ve been waiting for what seeems like ages, and still to no avail. :-( October seems so far away *sigh*. It’s gonna be cold and dark here in Norway before we see an iTMS that will take our money…
4
Hi Veerle,
Here @ spain, we have a similar organization to IFPI, that’s called SGAE (something like General Society of Spanish Authors ;-) ) In fact, if you search at Google by “ladrones” (that mean “thieves") you could find SGAE homepage in firts place!!!
This is because spanish people are very upset with this organization and theirs acts. For example, every spanish people must pay a cannon to SGAE for a blank CD, because they argue that can be used for piracy!!!
Anyway, I am very sad for not having ITMS until October (and I’m not sure that we hace ITMS in october!!!) Remember that people usually say that “europe begins at Pirenees” ;-)