Dutch Retailer Beats Apple to Local Download Market
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Free Record Shop, a Dutch music  retail chain, beat Apple Computer Inc. to market on Tuesday  with the launch of a new download service in Europe's latest  battleground for digital song services.
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Play.com gets the jump on Apple and Amazon Play.com, the Jersey-based entertainment retailer, has beaten Apple and Amazon to the punch today by opening the UK's first legal digital rights managment-free music download store with major label backing.â¦
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APPLE Computer has extended its online iTunes Music Store downloading service to nine more countries, but not Australia. The countries now able to download songs legally via the Apple system are Austria, Belgium
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Jefferson Graham writes in USA Today, &#147;Thanks to brilliant marketing, savvy neighborhood locations and a revival of the company&#146;s fortunes sparked by the hip iPod digital music player, Apple stores are hot. Walk into one in Los Angeles&#146; outdoor mall The Grove, in New York&#146;s Soho district, on Chicago&#146;s North Michigan Avenue or in Austin&#146;s Barton Creek Mall, and it is likely to be jammed with customers. Saturday, Apple opened its first European store, in London&#146;s West End district. Next month, the 100th store will open, in Bethesda, Md.&#148; [Nov 22]
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The US music industry is strengthening its embrace of music download services, with a unique Grammy Award/iTunes tie-up. The organisers of the Grammy Awards have reached a deal with Apple to
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Major handset vendors have much more to gain than to lose from the buzz Apple Inc's coveted iPhone will create when it arrives in European stores for the key shopping season ahead of Christmas.
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Late and under priced. The Apple iTunes Music Store has now opened for our Canadian Commonwealth friends. However it seems that the news isnât great if you live in America.
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(InfoWorld) - Just because three major online music retailers bind their music stores to specific portable players doesn't make it acceptable, a Norwegian consumer group leading the charge against Apple's DRM (digital rights management) policy says. "ITunes Music Store and others are unfair to consumers no matter how many download services follow the proprietary approach," wrote Torgeir Waterhouse, a senior advisor at The Norwegian Consumer Council, in response to a letter written by Apple CEO Steve Jobs andÂ posted on the Apple Web siteÂ on Tuesday. Jobs examined why DRM exists and discusses alternatives to the current set-up in his open response to calls for Apple to allow users to buy songs from the iTunes store and play them on any device. Norway's consumer representative hasÂ threatened legal action against AppleÂ for violating Norwegian law by limiting iTunes customers to playing their music only on iPods. Consumer groups in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, and Germany haveÂ joined Norway's complaintÂ against Apple. Jobs points out that Microsoft and Sony also sell music that can only be played on their players, supporting a model that serves customers well with choice and a continuing stream of innovative products. He also suggests that groups like Waterhouse's "redirect their energies" toward convincing the music labels to sell music without DRM, technology that aims to restrict how buyers can copy or use the music. The four biggest record labels forced Apple to employ a proprietary DRM system as a condition of the agreement that allows Apple to sell their music, he said. Ideally, he said, the labels wouldn't require DRM. "This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat," Jobs wrote. While Waterhouse agrees that the record companies carry some fault for the situation, the iTunes music store and others like it are ultimately responsible. "They're still the company that's selling music to the consumers and are responsible for offering a fair deal according to Norwegian law," he said. Still, with his letter, Jobs' appears to have stirred up some additional pressure on the record labels to change their DRM policies. EMusic.com Inc., which claims to be the second largest music download site, only sells DRM-free music from thousands of independent labels. But the site would like be able to sell music from the four biggest labels. "We are hopeful the remaining four will one day join [the independent labels] by licensing their complete catalogs and reap the benefits of consumer demand," David Pakman, president and CEO of eMusic, wrote in a response to Jobs' letter. Even though Jobs didn't hint that a solution might be impending, Waterhouse appeared to see a glimmer of hope. "If this means that Apple is willing to the kick the lock in technology from the [iTunes/iPod] combination this is really good news -- news that should be put into action as soon as possible to bring us all one important step closer to a well functioning digital society," he wrote.
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By James Forsyth  APPLE'S dominance of the digital download market has long been music to the ears of investors in the Californian computer giant.
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European shoppers are petitioning Apple to bring EU pricing better in line with that of the United States.
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Apple rolles out a limited version of its video download service in the UK, with mainly US content available.
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Real is in a running battle with Apple, whose iTunes download store dominates with about 70 percent of legal downloading and whose iPod device for music storage is hugely popular. The iPod and iTunes were designed to work exclusively ...
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Blog: Financial Times reports that the iTunes Store has inked its first deal with a third-party social network.
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The company ended its temporary promotion that saw it slash the price of its downloadable songs to 49 cents. The company launched the promotion last month to compete with Apple&#39;s iTunes service, the market leader.
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Stamping all over Jobs' carbon footprint Greenpeace Netherlands targeted Apple shops in Amsterdam on Saturday with flyers claiming the company has made absolutely no improvements to its environmental policies or practices.â¦
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Apple makes it easy to (legally) download films. But it faces stiff competition
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Apple Computer is planning to expand its online music download service to more European countries, the company announced at the Popkomm music trade fair.