AfterDawn: News

Apple adds 1000 rare Chinese tracks to iTunes

Apple has teamed up with Universal to offer rare Chinese music tracks on the iTunes music download service. Now that a lot of worlds biggest online download services have gotten the most popular content from the major record labels, the rush now seems to be offering music downloads of less popular and more rare music. For example a new download service called CrimsonBay launched recently to offer only Indian music tracks for download.

Apple's move could potentially be seen as a sign of the future for digital music retail, as online operators and music firms explore back catalogue and off-territory opportunities in the warehouse-cost-free new music market. P2P services have one major advantage over legal stores, and that's that you can find very rare music on P2P networks. A few years down the line it will be interesting to see the size of the catalogues the music download stores will have as the recording industry tries to get as much money out of the services as it can.



This new service is especially good for Chinese people in countries where it is hard to find Chinese music. They would havbe to go to music stores that specialise in foreign music to get it. Now that the music is availible via a legal music download service, the recording industries argument would be that there's no excuse now for using P2P networks to download and share it.

Source:
Macworld UK

Written by: James Delahunty @ 7 Feb 2005 9:25

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• 3 comments

• zomer

  Wow, I wonder if the next step is the full album of Eskimo love songs Vol. 3.
  
  That CD rocks!

  7.2.2005 11:20 #1

• A_Klingon

  "...the recording industries argument ... there's no excuse now for using P2P networks to download and share ..."
  
  (Yeah, right). Whatever they say. For sure, for sure. (Anybody 'buy' that crap?)
  
  No more reason now than there ever was, I suppose, which still means plenty of reason!
  
  I bet the Chinese trade/share more 'rare chinese songs' than iTunes has ever heard tell of. They can dance P2P circles all over Apple.
  
  It's all just a whole lot more of absolutely nothing from the good folks at iTunes. -- Have Fun Downloading --

  8.2.2005 07:03 #2

• rhyslud

  I was very excited when I first heard this news but the selection they have is really dated and most of it just sucks. I thinks the guys at Universal are laughing at Apple for buying the 10 year old dregs of their collection.
  
  I hope people don't sample this stuff and come to the conclusion that todays Chinese music is really that bad.
  
  I have a Mandarin radio station on Live365. And it is very time-consumming to keep up with the latest stuff. I don't read Chinese (yet), so I was hoping iTunes would be the English answer. It's not. I have a free song I won in a Pepsi bottle and I don't want any of this Chinese music.
  
  They really need to get the current Rock, Sony, AVEX and Warner catalogs. As they say in China, "Mucho Mejor."

  20.2.2005 09:25 #3