Finally Apple has opened an iTunes store in Australia. After years of iTunes being available in other countries and long drawn out negotiations with Sony-BMG, Australians can now use Australian credit cards to purchase music online. Of course in the end Sony BMG didn't come to the party, due mostly to not getting enough royalties per downloaded song. You would think some is better than none, but hey, that's probably why I'm not in charge of one of the biggest record companies in the world. As a result (and I know this will upset you Richie) Artists such as Shannon Noll and Anthony Callea will not be available.
So what does this mean to you and me? It means we can legally download a song from the internet that is compatible with an iPod. It costs $1.69 per song and $16.99 per album, which is pretty cheap compared to a full-price cd but expensive if it's a bargain bin jobbie. As a comparison, BigPond normally charges $1.89 per song. For those of you whose guilt at downloading illegal music has been slowly eating you up inside eventhough you feel you were justified because you couldn't legally download stuff for your iPod, here is a chance to assuage your uneasiness.
There are other good reasons for legally downloading music apart from the legal implications and guilt, such as garaunteed sound quality and the availability of hard to find music.
Of course music has been available to download legally in Australia from sources such as BigPond for a while now, but the files available were in a format not supported by iPod. Those files also came with some pretty heavy restrictions as far as CD Burning and copying goes, something the Apple files seem to avoid.
You can find out more from The Herald here and Apple here
16 comments:
All this new-fangled technology - vinyl does everything I need!
Gosh, you mean its finally legal for them to sell iPods now? Oh sorry, you could always use it to store and listen to music you create yourself! How silly of me...
Under australia copyright law, it is illegal to make an mp3 file out of a music CD that you own, without express permission from the record label.
It is also illegal to tape record radio, and use a VCR to record TV shows.
I would be very surprised if iTunes files can be easily burnt to a music CD, since any music that can be burnt to a CD may then be extracted again without any built in copy protection that came with the original file.
In the states, they have "fair use" copyright law which means that you are allowed to make backups and create mp3's from purchased CDs for listening to on a computer/mp3 player, but in Australia we have copyright law which transforms probably 99% of its citizens into criminals by virtue of being decades out of date.
I love my little pink iPod mini!
BTW Flit, does that mean you will happily hand over your entire CD collection to us?
I don't own any cd's, only vinyl I tells ya.
I read about the horrendous aus laws relating to this a while ago, apparently they tried to introduce legislation to provide a kickback to copyright owners from sales of audio tapes (remember them, just after 8 track) but couldn't get it through, nothing has been attempted since - quite what all those people are doing owning VCRs is a fair question, home movies I imagine.
Well technically the copyright holder can choose what rights they grant you on a case by case basis. I'm assuming that iTunes have a standard agreement that they enter into with each record company.
That agreement allows them to place or not place conditions of sale based on copyright for the use of the music. The legislation only backs them up if they choose to enforce the non-cd burning part.
The iTunes website says : "You shall be authorized to use the Product only for personal, non-commercial use, and not for redistribution, transfer, assignment or sublicence, to the extent permitted by law."
"You shall be entitled to burn and export Products solely for personal, non-commercial use."
And
" Any burning or exporting capabilities are solely an accommodation to you and shall not constitute a grant or waiver (or other limitation or implication) of any rights of the copyright owners of any content, sound recording, underlying musical composition or artwork embodied in any Product."
so it seems that the copyright holders have granted iTunes permission to let their customers burn CDs from their downloaded tracks.
Possibly why they are having trouble with Sony BMG.
I had a big fight with EMI over a CD with copy protection a while ago now, which is when I found out that we aren't even technically allowed to rip CDs for personal use. The copy protection they use is horrible, what happens is the introduce errors into the CD which mean it can't be played properly using a computer CD rom (which is much more sensitive than a stereo CD player).
Instead, when you insert the CD into a computer, it announces that "Files on this computer must be updated in order to play this CD" without any explaination, and when you click Yes, it installs a propriatory player which plays a low quality version of the CD (low qual as they have a limit on the space since this is a second copy of the music apart from the audio tracks).
This method is so invasive, it lowers the lifetime of the "CD", and also renders it invalid under the (panasonics?) compactdisc specs. So it isn't actually a CD at all, it is a silver disc that happens to contains music. They developed a copy protection logo and put that where the CD logo would normally go.
The way around it? Use a DVD-Rom, that appears to totally ignore the copy protection, which suits me fine. But that is when it became clear to me how far behind australia is in comparison to other countries.
EMIs defense was that UNFORTUNATELY I wasn't allowed to make copies for use on an iPod anyway, because of australia's copyright laws. I made the point that this is entirely at the discretion of EMI, which was when I stopped receiving responses from them.
I say screw the record companies any way you can! They are making so much money as it is, and if you can download free music and/or burn someone else's CD then do it.
I think the only time it is bad to do so is if it is a small independent band/label which do actually need and deserve all the money they can make.
And I agree with Richard's comment, the fact that you can't play some CDs on your computer is shit. Not a good way for them to try to win your favour enough to buy the next CD you want.
So does Matt have to pay royalties to the Herald for ripping off their acticle? Or could we just send him to Long Bay? Now there a home video i would watch....
The problem is, screwing the record label does also involve screwing the artist, because you better believe they label recoups it's costs before the artist starts to see any real money.
I understand what you are saying, but my point was that if EMI said you were allowed to copy your CD you would be allowed to. It is at the discretion of the copyright holder how you are allowed to use the copyrighted material.
That is why you are allowed to burn music you download from iTunes.
At the end of the day, I would alway rather buy the physical CD than download it. Does iTunes allow you to download something you have bought multiple times, or if you lose your HDD or whatever do you lose any music you have bought?
I know you can make backups etc, but owning the actual disc will always come first for me.
Still, it would be good for buying wierd stuff that you have trouble finding in Oz, assuming that sort of thing would be for sale.
I like owning the CD too, but sometimes I don't want a whole album and sometimes I'm a little ashamed to buy the CD (like that song about having a bad day where the girl draws on that billboard. I like that one but wouldn't admit it to ANYONE, especially not to my friends!)
I, for one, am happy about the news. $1.69 for a song seems a lot more do-able then the $25 you need for a CD, too. I can see some real impulse buying on my horizon!
I think you can burn as much as you want. Not sure about re-downloading. I also much prefer to buy the physical CD, but like sarah, sometimes I just want 1 track and couldn't be arsed tracking down the single or buying the full cd.
Plus when you buy a single, you usually have to spend $5 and you get a few B-sides which is great if you love the artist but annoying if you don't. Then you have this daggy old single hanging around which you rarely play because you know you'll just have to get up and change the CD in 7 minutes anyway. I'll be glad to save the $3.31, the shelf space and the effort of loading the CD.
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