thomas fitzgerald.net

TV shows seem to be showing unexplained delays in being released. There was quite a bit of consternation from fans of NCIS last week when the latest episode only arrived a week after it had been broadcast, and this week apparently there is no sign of the latest episode of “The Sarah Connor Chronicles”. Are the networks just slow in getting the material to Apple for dissemination or is there some behind the scenes politics going on between the studios and cupertino? Either way, if this continues or gets worse it will undoubtedly push people back to bit torrent as their primary source of TV shows.

In the midst of investigations by numerous EU countries and the EU itself last year Apple’s boss, Steve Jobs declared that DRM was the culprit behind iTunes inoperability with other devices and together with EMI they launched “iTunes Plus”. The new service featured higher quality songs in a DRM free AAC format and was initially supported by EMI, and then with several independent labels as well. Since then little else has happened with iTunes plus. The once heavily touted offering is now relegated to the back pages of itunes and no other major label has come onboard. So just what happened to iTunes Plus?

From Apple Insider:

Averting a potentially drawn out conflict over music royalties at iTunes and other online stores, the Copyright Royalty Board on Thursday said it would preserve the same royalty rate as today for CDs and downloadable songs

Phew, potential, but highly unlikely crisis averted.
[Read Copyright board leaves music royalty payments unchanged]

From Wired:

Apple has threatened to shut down iTunes if an obscure three-person board appointed by the Librarian of Congress increase the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters by six cents. The Copyright Royalty Board votes on the industry request on Thursday.

I seriously doubt Apple would actually go this far. It would seriously piss off a huge percentage of their customers. Still, it’s another reason why DRM is a Bad bad bad idea.

[Read Apple Threatens iTunes Shutdown in Royalty Dispute]

A week later Apple finally seems to have ironed out whatever issue had caused games to be unavailable on the Irish store. While it’s great to see the content finally available, it’s a shame the way Apple choose to handle it, basically fobbing off anyone who asked about the situation. All they would have had to do is issue a statement saying there were some technical glitches and to be patient, but instead there was no consistent message from Apple’s tech support and no one from Apple corporate would comment on it.

Anyway, hopefully this is now resolved.

With the recent five year anniversary of the launch of the iTunes music store it occurred to me that in all that time it was amazing that no one ever really successfully competed with Apple’s music store. Considering the sheer number of attempts by various competing stores you would have imagined that someone would have at least come a close second, but even big names like Sony and Microsoft couldn’t catch the iTunes juggernaut. The traditional theory is that it was the iPod that spurred sales of iTunes and the fairplay “lock in” that meant music purchased on the iTunes store would only play on iPods was what caused the store to dominate. Yet, theoretically, that should have had the opposite effect. Now that music is available DRM Free on Amazon, effectively removing that lock, you would have imagined that Amazon’s mp3 service would have taken a significant chunk of iTunes sales, yet numbers from NPD show it’s barely made a dent. So how is it that iTunes has been virtually unopposed all this time? The answer, I believe, is actually pretty simple.

This is a classic example of a straw man argument. You put up an article with a completely baiting but pointless central argument just so you can tear it down. iLounge, an online publication I generally respect, posts an editorial entitled:

Can Sony Trump iTunes With New PlayStation Store?

It then goes on to highlite the new aspects of the improved Playstation store. Now, if you don’t have a PS3, that headline may lead you to wonder if sony has started their own music service or movie download store for Playstation owners.

Nope.

The Playstation store is an online store primarily to sell games, deliver game demos and some other content to Ps3 owners. The only way in which it even compares to iTunes is that it offers some movie trailers.

So does iLounge suggest that Sony might start offering music and movie downloads through the playstation store?

Nope.

So with absolutely no comparisons between two totally different services the article finishes with this gem of wisdom…

“Sheer customer base aside, there are a few other non-trivial ways in which Apple has Sony beat, though. The PlayStation Store offers no music, podcasts, or real video content—you get trailers for Blu-ray Discs and theatrical releases, but not movies to purchase or rent”

Not that you could have missed this news, but anyway, From the Apple Press Release:

Apple® today announced that the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com) surpassed Wal-Mart to become the number one music retailer in the US, based on the latest data from the NPD Group*. With over 50 million customers, iTunes has sold over four billion songs and features the world’s largest music catalog of over six million songs.

“We launched iTunes less than five years ago, and it has now become the number one music retailer in the world,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We are thrilled, and would like to thank all of our customers for helping us reach this incredible milestone.”

*Based on data from market research firm the NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey that captures consumer reported past week unit purchases and counts one CD representing 12 tracks, excluding wireless transactions. The iTunes Store became the largest music retailer in the US based on the amount of music sold during January and February 2008.

[Read iTunes Store Top Music Retailer in the US]