December 7th, 2004

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Music
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No iTunes in Ireland

As regular readers know, I’m not a fan of the iTunes store and the DRM that comes with it. However, some of my friends are excited because iTunes recently launched in Canada. This morning I was writing an article about Apple. In my research, I discovered that iTunes Europe is accessible to everyone but the Irish. What’s with that?

Here’s an explanation:

It appears Apple originally planned to open for business in Ireland this Tuesday, when it extended its service across Europe. These plans, however, were stymied at the last minute by a disagreement with the Irish Music Rights Organization (IMRO).

Apparently they’re still in negotiations? If any of my Irish readers want to comment, I’d appreciate it.

Comments: One Response so far

Declan
December 8th, 2004
3:54 am

Darren, you werent really surprised were you? You lived here for a few years so you should be used to these little “hitches”. I would suspect that the prospect of ITunes was not welcomed by several big music retail chains in Ireland, so IMRO probably came under alot of pressure to put a stop to ITunes.

Remember the email that went around last year comparing prices in different shops and on the internet. (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-111580.html)

The result of this seems to have been IRMA (Should that be IMRO or are IMRA tired of listening to cheap music on long runs? http://www.imra.ie) cracking down not on the big stores, but on CDWOW the cheapest way to get music in Ireland http://blogs.linux.ie/xeer/2003/11/27/irma-sue-cd-wow-illegal-grey-imports/

And dont forget, even if the dispute is now settled between Apple and IMRO, the UK is complaining about unfair pricing on ITunes and the EU is looking into a Europe wide music organisation to standardise these things http://www.cdfreaks.com/news2.php?ID=10501

So Apple may just not bother opening an Irish store until everything gets sorted.

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