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Napster vs iTunes: UK Fight
StumbleUponIt's what everybody is talking about: Napster's launch last month vs today's iTunes spectacular. It's agreed that the future of music is digital, but who will we end up buying our ditties from?
Apple today officially launched its iTunes Music Store in the UK, France and Germany with a press party in Old Billingsgate Market. With a keynote from Steve Jobs, a set from Alicia Keys, and NMK in attendance the iTunes launch went off with a bang.With songs being priced at 79p/€0.99 each, and albums at £7.99/€9.99, the selection of over 700,000 songs is expected to boost Apple in Europe.
But with the Media Guardian reporting that Apple has failed to secure agreements with many key independent record labels, iTunes will be lacking in UK and European tracks, with the majority of the tracks available being American-led.
Simon Wheeler of Beggars Banquet told Media Guardian that it was refusing to sign up to iTunes Europe due to ‘unacceptable terms’. A spokesperson for the Association of Independent Music called these terms ‘commercial suicide’.
In comparison Naptster announced today that they are to partner with NTL Broadband Plus’ free 30-day trial with a £3.99 paid-for content bundle including music, entertainment, news and education. Napster recently increased its music library to 700,000, has signed a promotion deal with Dixons, and now has access to 750,000 people with high-speed internet access through NTL.
However, unlike Napster iTunes is subscription-free, with Steve Jobs commenting today that “subscription was an experiment that has failed.”
Music downloaders have already downloaded 500,000 legal music tracks this year according to the British Phonographic Industry, and the launch of Napster UK, Apple iTunes Europe, and 0D2 yesterday – with SonicSelecter jukebox and streaming songs for a penny – means that the UK will be listening to more digital music than ever. But the decision as to whom to get the songs from in the first place has yet to be decided.
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Comments
colin_kirkpatrick said:
Download for charidee <p>Two or three years ago companies like Apple and Coca Cola seemed like unlikely music sellers. Now Oxfam have entered the fray with http://www.bignoisemusic.com/ . It's basically another re-skinned OD2, but with this one 10p in every pound goes to Oxfam charities.<br/></p>
nathan_barley said:
Alicia Keys <p>Anyone else think Alicia Keys squandered any credibility she might have had by doing the iTunes launch gig? Oooh, iTunes, let me get close to you, pay me a big fat wad of dollars. As Bill Hicks once said, any musician who lets their music be used in an advert is off the artistic roll call for ever. And then afterwards, the multi-millionaire twentysomething was bleating away about how piracy was damaging artists and their music...<br/></p>
nathan_barley said:
Steve 'Big' Jobs <p>...and Jobs is just another multi-millionaire IT baron, like Gates and Dell and the rest of them. (Can you sense a slight antipathy towards multi-millionaires emerging? Not that I'm jealous or anything.) I hate the way people regard him as some sort of revolutionary, counter-culture figure just because he wears jeans (and a polo-neck for god's sake) instead of a suit. So what if Apples aren't Microsoft? It's hardly an ideology -- they're all just trying to sell you more stuff.<br/></p>
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