Latest Music Distribution Companies News

2009APR050903

Image by bootload
Black Saturday +day59

Why Apple and iTunes is a "piece of crap"

update seems amazon plays this game as well

♬ cough up the bucks / cough up the bucks / where did all the money go? / where did all the cash go? / where did all the revenue stream? ♬

Part two, part three, four, five and six,

I was an Apple user once. My second computer after my ZX80 (not the ’81, we got that as a ROM upgrade) was a Apple ][e clone. A clone? Well Apple computers at that time cost the obligatory 00+ for the base machine. Probably more. At High School my physics teacher Steve, organised a group of people to bulk-purchase some Apple ][e’s. But alas they cost I think 00 dollars per machine. Too rich for me. In the end a mate of my Dads who worked for Collins/Rockwell at the time bought a couple of Taiwanese clones, in bits from overseas. The machine was re-assembled and many a good time was had playing around with machines. The Apple ][e was a master stroke of openness. You could buy new cards, plug them in and the machine could be expanded. You could hack new hardware with the machine then program in basic or even 6502 assembler to do new stuff. New trumps old.

But that was a long time ago.

Fast forward to yesterday. I’d went to my sisters to pick up a Jonathon Ives Mac. A beautiful piece of Industrial design. The hardware is unobtrusive. The screen crystal clear. The software slick. But when it came to do the business of purchasing a simple song track on iTunes the house of Apple tumbles. I don’t get it. I have a valid account. I have a credit card. I want a particular song. But I can’t buy it. Why?… Because I’m Australian. Whoever is releasing the single in cohorts with Apple detect I’m in a foreign land and block my purchase. I have to wait till the release date for my area. Why?

"… Apple is the big brother they claim to have smashed in 1984 …"

I wanted to have a crack at building a video clip for this competition. A simple distraction. The prize wasn’t much but the idea of trying some new ideas and building a video is appealing. The tools on my machine, at its simplest a high end processor and board housed in the cheapest nastiest box I could find are not up to the task. The Apple tools for media work. But when it comes time to purchase using a simple service touted as the Saviour of the music industry and I can’t because of International borders. The Internet knows no borders. Do record companies really understand why digital music is bleeding?

So this is why Apple and iTunes is "a piece of crap"? You pay for good hardware, software and seamless service. But that service is fatally flawed. You have to get what "they" want to give you "when" they tell you. Not in my Internet. So unless I can get that track it looks like I’m back to doing other stuff.

♬ it’s all about my world / it’s all about my girl / it’s all about my dream / cough up the bucks / cough up the bucks ♬

The irony of going into a video competition by Neil Young who wants you to boycott YouTube because they won’t settle payments with "record company clowns" is not lost on me.

next >>>

Interview with Zach James and Rich Raddon, MOVIECLIPS.COM
Last week, Los Angeles-based MOVIECLIPS.COM (www.movieclips.com) announced the firm’s Series A funding round, worth $ 3M, from Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital, and a number of Silicon Valley angels. We caught up with Zach James and Rich Raddon, co-founders of MOVIECLIPS, to learn more about the company and also hear about the firm’s funding round. Zach–who is the …
Read more on socalTech.com

Harbour Group Acquires Hardware Resources
Harbour Group has acquired Hardware Resources Inc., a designer, manufacturer and distributor of products for the cabinet industry, Jeff Fox, Harbour Group’s chief executive officer, announced.
Read more on PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance

Ricart Used Car Factory in Columbus, OH Selected as a MOTOR TREND® Certified Advantage Dealership
MOTOR TREND®, a publication of Source Interlink Media, LLC, a subsidiary of media and marketing services company Source Interlink Companies, Inc, and EasyCare®, the leading independent provider of automotive benefits specifically created to enhance a consumer’s vehicle buying and ownership experience, today announce that Ricart Used Car Factory, in Columbus, OH has been selected as a MOTOR …
Read more on PRWeb via Yahoo! News