It's not easy being legal

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Dear music industry,

Please make it easier to be legally compliant.

Thanks.

—

I had an unpleasant experience this morning in the iTunes Store. I mentioned on Twitter to my friend, Bronwen Clune, that Josh Groban’s new album, Noel, had a very good version of Little Drummer Boy on it. I figured, heck, it’s only 99 cents, I’d send her a copy of it legally through the iTunes Store, make a nice Christmas gift, right?

Apple apparently had a different idea:

“An email you’ve specified to receive a Gift is set up for an account in a different country’s iTunes Store (Australian). Gift recipients may only redeem their gift in this iTunes Store (United States).”

Apple, did it ever occur to you that I might have friends outside the country I live in? This is, after all, the Internet, where borders are crossed with the click of a mouse. I checked other digital stores that have a pay per download, and no luck on Amazon or CD Baby. Everyone loses. The musician doesn’t get paid, the label doesn’t get paid, Apple and other providers don’t get paid.

Instead of buying and sharing the music legally, I had to go dig up a YouTube video that someone else had posted with the track as its soundtrack. I’m not willing to break the law by ripping the track myself but if someone else has already done the work and stuck their neck out publicly, I’m not opposed to sending a link.

Here’s the thing. Apple – you missed a revenue opportunity. Please let me BUY music for friends internationally. I realize the US dollar is close to worthless overseas, but still. How many musicians in iTunes miss out on revenues and sales every day because of this e-commerce paywall between nations?

Music industry – the lesson is not that free will always win. EASY will always win. I could rip this track for free by breaking the DRM and converting to an MP3, but that’s 10 minutes of my day I can spend doing something else (like blogging about it). That would be free, but I want easy. I value my time more than my money, because I can always make money, but my lifespan is finite and irreplaceable. Make it EASY for me to legally buy, share, and distribute the music I love, and I will. Yes, price is a consideration, but it’s not the ONLY factor.

Musicians – always have more than one e-commerce store distributing your stuff, because occasionally a customer will want to do something unexpected with your music, and if they can pay you for it easily, all the better. For example, I can imagine a tip jar being set out on a musician’s web site that says, “Feel free to rip my CD and if you want to send an MP3 to a friend, all I ask is that you drop 99 cents in the jar per track. Thanks.”

Comments

10 responses to “It's not easy being legal”

December 13, 2007

Bob LeDrew

But Chris, doesn’t this reflect two things:

1. That rights aren’t universally granted to organizations like iTunes in the USA (which is why we Canadians can’t buy 99% of TV shows through our iTunes store)

2. That commerce online sometimes reflects offline. For example, if I were to buy a lottery ticket for my dad, here’s the deal: I’m in Ontario; he’s in Nova Scotia. He can’t cash in a winner from me down there; different lottery corps. We don’t have Target stores here. Doubtful I could use a Target gift card.

Not disagreeing with your point — it SHOULD be easier to be legally compliant. But it’s a difficult set of challenges to address.

Reply
December 13, 2007

Bob LeDrew

But Chris, doesn’t this reflect two things:

1. That rights aren’t universally granted to organizations like iTunes in the USA (which is why we Canadians can’t buy 99% of TV shows through our iTunes store)

2. That commerce online sometimes reflects offline. For example, if I were to buy a lottery ticket for my dad, here’s the deal: I’m in Ontario; he’s in Nova Scotia. He can’t cash in a winner from me down there; different lottery corps. We don’t have Target stores here. Doubtful I could use a Target gift card.

Not disagreeing with your point — it SHOULD be easier to be legally compliant. But it’s a difficult set of challenges to address.

Reply
December 13, 2007

Vergel E

The issue is a little more complicated and even though it is easy to blame Apple for this, the issue sits squarely with the the record label, in this case WEA/Reprise.

Josh Groban’s album was bought and paid for by WEA/Reprise (the record label). In the purchase process they negotiated the rights to that album to retail as they see fit in North America. The cost of purchasing the rights to distribute and sell the album internationally would have been a different price point.

The problem is the same old world problem that record labels still face today…. They think that territories and rights stop at the boarder. AND labels are cheap!

WEA/Reprise probably has a limited promotional budget and only focused on promoting the album in the USA. Because of the promotional limits they probably didn’t bother buying the international rights to the album. WEA/Reprise probably believed that Josh’s audience would only exist within their promotional net.

In your case, you wanted to gift a song to someone who is outside of the labels expected core audience. Your “unique case” would have been expected in their marketing matrix, but they would’ve figured it would be so small compared to their audience that it wouldn’t justify spending the extra money in purchasing the international rights to represent that album.

Just calling WEA/Reprise cheap wouldn’t cover the issue.

They conveniently hide their oversight behind iTunes and the mess you went through. While you’ve directed your frustration at Apple, the real source is the label. Apple simply retails the music as directed by the label. If the label does not have rights, or is not interested in retailing music in a specific region, they won’t pay Apple the costs of hosting that music in that region.

So if WEA/Reprise had have purchased the global rights to retail Josh Groban’s Noel album, and made that option available on iTunes, you wouldn’t / shouldn’t have had that problem.

As for artists retailing their music online: Definitely, retail your music in all music markets. Definitely use both iTunes and a secondary mainstream retailer such as Amazon or eMusic. Be sure that the secondary retailer allows for DRM free files which allow for sharing.

In closing: Mainstream labels STILL don’t understand the new music landscape, nor do they understand the value of social media and how music is discovered and shared.

Reply
December 13, 2007

Vergel E

The issue is a little more complicated and even though it is easy to blame Apple for this, the issue sits squarely with the the record label, in this case WEA/Reprise.

Josh Groban’s album was bought and paid for by WEA/Reprise (the record label). In the purchase process they negotiated the rights to that album to retail as they see fit in North America. The cost of purchasing the rights to distribute and sell the album internationally would have been a different price point.

The problem is the same old world problem that record labels still face today…. They think that territories and rights stop at the boarder. AND labels are cheap!

WEA/Reprise probably has a limited promotional budget and only focused on promoting the album in the USA. Because of the promotional limits they probably didn’t bother buying the international rights to the album. WEA/Reprise probably believed that Josh’s audience would only exist within their promotional net.

In your case, you wanted to gift a song to someone who is outside of the labels expected core audience. Your “unique case” would have been expected in their marketing matrix, but they would’ve figured it would be so small compared to their audience that it wouldn’t justify spending the extra money in purchasing the international rights to represent that album.

Just calling WEA/Reprise cheap wouldn’t cover the issue.

They conveniently hide their oversight behind iTunes and the mess you went through. While you’ve directed your frustration at Apple, the real source is the label. Apple simply retails the music as directed by the label. If the label does not have rights, or is not interested in retailing music in a specific region, they won’t pay Apple the costs of hosting that music in that region.

So if WEA/Reprise had have purchased the global rights to retail Josh Groban’s Noel album, and made that option available on iTunes, you wouldn’t / shouldn’t have had that problem.

As for artists retailing their music online: Definitely, retail your music in all music markets. Definitely use both iTunes and a secondary mainstream retailer such as Amazon or eMusic. Be sure that the secondary retailer allows for DRM free files which allow for sharing.

In closing: Mainstream labels STILL don’t understand the new music landscape, nor do they understand the value of social media and how music is discovered and shared.

Reply
December 13, 2007

holycow

I think the music industry does understand the new landscape, it just that they don’t like it and don’t want to deal with it as it is. They want to change it to suit their needs.

Its a difficult situation because new budding artists do need the music industry. The industry takes a big risk on these new artists, so to maximize returns they slice and dice the world.

Question is how can the artists be served at every stage of their career without the need for the music industry?

Reply
December 13, 2007

holycow

I think the music industry does understand the new landscape, it just that they don’t like it and don’t want to deal with it as it is. They want to change it to suit their needs.

Its a difficult situation because new budding artists do need the music industry. The industry takes a big risk on these new artists, so to maximize returns they slice and dice the world.

Question is how can the artists be served at every stage of their career without the need for the music industry?

Reply
December 13, 2007

julien

this happened to me too. totally ridiculous.

i understand that apple can’t necessarily do something about it, but there should be a warning somewhere. otherwise it’s like “merry Xmas! this present can’t be unwrapped!”

Reply
December 13, 2007

julien

this happened to me too. totally ridiculous.

i understand that apple can’t necessarily do something about it, but there should be a warning somewhere. otherwise it’s like “merry Xmas! this present can’t be unwrapped!”

Reply
December 14, 2007

Daniele Rossi

That’s why my and my friends overseas purchase tracks for each other that aren’t available on each other’s iTunes stores. It’s a pain to waste a blank CD to rip the mp3 but what can you do.

Reply
December 14, 2007

Daniele Rossi

That’s why my and my friends overseas purchase tracks for each other that aren’t available on each other’s iTunes stores. It’s a pain to waste a blank CD to rip the mp3 but what can you do.

Reply