Look, I am an average person, I have average tastes.
So my local radio station, ‘Number One in the Gulf!’ gives lots of play to the British hit list. Number One in the UK is (or was) ‘Is This the Way to Amarillo?’ iTunes US does not have it. I go to iTunes UK, they don’t have it.
So while I am in the UK store I decide to order McCarthney’s first post-Beatles number one. This song was huge, it moved more records than any other McCarthney song (outdoing ‘And She Loves You’). iTunes UK doesn’t have the original recording!
So I try to buy a cover. It won’t let me. Because I am not in the UK!
I am so upset I will not tell you the name of the Paul McCarthney song I want to get.
I don’t have iTunes, don’t know what you can get on it, and won’t be getting it, but I can offer you a probable explanation: You are not likely to find any Beatles, or post-Beatles music on that service as long as Apple and Apple are at war. The computer company was allowed to use the record company’s name as long as they stayed out of the music business. Well, they reneged on the deal. So, don’t hold your breath.
I wouldn’t blame iTunes for that, really. It all depends on what sort of contract they’re able to sign with music companies. A lot of them attach provisos for their most popular artists, like selling only the entire album or not having some of their most popular songs. Unfortunate? Certainly. Within Apple’s control? Only marginally.
I’m annoyed with them at the moment because I want Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice.” They have a lot of other Fatboy Slim, but not that song. So I keep requesting it.
I can’t get too mad, though, because after I spent a year of requesting it every month or so, they finally got the Gary Jules remake of “Mad World” that’s on the Donnie Darko soundtrack.
Yeah, I’ve been disappointed at what iTunes doesn’t have at times. I think they are missing the Stones too. I suspect that once the business model proves itself, everyone will jump on board. There’s money to be made, after all.
They have a pretty good selection of the Stones from 1971 on, including a couple of exclusive live tracks. But they don’t have any of the ABKCO catalog, which includes all the Stones’ sixties recordings.
[QUOTE=Podkayne]
I’m annoyed with them at the moment because I want Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice.” They have a lot of other Fatboy Slim, but not that song. So I keep requesting it.
Me too! Nice to know I’m not the only one requesting it.
Fuck ITunes and their convoluted protection schemes that make it difficult to rip music that I pay for. Although I still sometimes buy from them, I have long since gone to someplace else for my music.
I have no reason to believe it is not illegal, the music is cheap, and it is all in the standard MP3 format. I just checked, and Fatboy Slim’s ‘Weapon of Choice’ IS there as well. The URL (mods delete if you think it is not kosher) is http://mclub.te.net.ua/ based out of Ukraine where I had recently visited.
Anyway, the legality of Eastern European/Russian music sites has been debated here, though only one such thread about it has actually been closed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the situation with both were similar.
The first thing I do after downloading music from iTunes is burn it to a CD.
That removes any DRM crap and you can do whatever you see fit with the tracks on the CD.
Not being familiar enough with iTunes, this may be a simple question. Once music is downloaded from the iTunes music store, is there a time limit after which you cannot burn it to a CD?
I think that what wheelie is saying (I was a bit confused with the wording, sorry!) is that once you burn it to a regular CD, there are no protections on it if you want to rip it back to as many computers as you wish. OF COURSE, I’m not saying that you should do this, I’ve just noticed this tidbit of information in my own mixing activities.
Nope. There’s a limit to how many times you can burn a playlist containing purchased music (I think it’scurrently seven), but you can simply rearrange/edit the playlist and continue.
That was my understanding as well, and maybe I am doing something wrong, but I keep all of my music in either mp3 or mp4 format, depending on the source of the music (ITunes, the aforementioned Ukranian site, my own CDs, etc.). I keep all of the music in a single folder for convenience, and when I try to burn disks via the ITunes burning tool, it seems that half the music will not apply to the playlist.
So perhaps my frustration is more with that, than with the ITunes protection, but it is no less frustrating to have so many problems when I just want a huge MP3 disk to listen to while I cut my grass (I have an old school CD/MP3 player, rather than an IPod or its ilk).
I can answer that. Your CD/MP3 player can’t play iTunes music because it’s in mp4 format, so when burning an MP3 CD, iTunes filters out any incompatible songs. If you happen to have a CD/MP3 player that can ALSO play AAC music(rare, but my car stereo does it), you can change the preferences to burn a ‘Data Disc’ and it will let you burn all the music.
I don’t see how this is iTunes’ fault. Your player can’t play the type of files they sell, anyway. Why complain that they aren’t burning to CD?
