As scary as it is funny

ASCAP tries to Squeeze Apple & iTunes

The music makers are in a quandary. By failing to embrace digital downloads early on, they failed to create a revenue stream on their own terms via the internet and are now dependent on Apple. When they want to increase their revenue stream, they can only do so with the help of a company that only sells music in order to sell iPods and iPhones. They have been trying to get Apple to raise rates and increase royalties, and have failed. So now they are taking their fight to Congress to charge even for previews.

Songwriters, composers, and music publishers are making preparations to one day collect performance fees from Apple and other e-tailers for not just traditional music downloads but for downloads of films and TV shows as well. Those downloads contain music after all.
These groups even want compensation for iTunes' 30-second song samples.
At a time when many iTunes shoppers are still fuming over Apple's first-ever increase in song prices, the demands by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), and other performing-rights groups, would likely lead to more price hikes at iTunes. For many, this would also undoubtedly confirm their perception that those overseeing the music industry are greedy.

While I appreciate the pressures the Great Recession is having on the music industry, they need to be more careful or they may unwittingly drive customers back to BitTorrents. Creative workers need to be paid, but they also need to be wise.

Apple drops iSync support for Palm

While I own an iPhone 3GS, I have been watching the drama surrounding the Palm Pre with considerable interest. I owned several Palm phones over the years - before Apple changed the game - and it was always a battle to sync those phones with the Mac. Recently, Palm designed the Pre to trick iTunes into allowing it to seamlessly sync with any Mac until Apple disabled the feature twice. Palm still seems to be insistent upon restoring the sync, despite Apple's insistence that only iPhones sync with iTunes.

Now, the next shot may have been fired in the sync war as Apple is abandoning iSync support for classic PalmOS phones in MacOS X 10.6 (snow leopard). This means users of Palm Centros, Treos, and their PDAs will either have to forgo the upgrade, or abandon their PalmOS devices.

NY Introduces "iPod Tax"

Proving yet again the problems with trusting un-elected officials in office, NY Governor David Patterson has introduced a huge set of new taxes in his 2009 budget, including a so-called iPod tax.

Trying to close a $15.4 billion budget gap, Paterson called for 88 new fees and a host of other taxes, including an "iPod tax" that taxes the sale of downloaded music and other "digitally delivered entertainment services."

One can only assume the Governor has not been paying attention to Apple's stance on such taxation in the past. If the governor expects Apple to collect this tax, he may be surprised and simply see Apple stop doing business with all IP addresses in the State. We'll see if New Yorkers stand for this first-of-its-kind special tax on their music.

If you missed any Convention speeches...

...remember that they are all available on iTunes. You can get the Republican speeches here and the Democratic speeches here. Personally, I am burned out on politics at the moment, but will try to come back to these in a few weeks when I can hear the word "Change" without rolling my eyes.

iPhone SDK Announced!

If you've been paying attention, this is no shock. If not, then let me say three words for you: Third-Party Applications. Soon (well, June) you will be seeing real third-party apps on your iPhone. See the full presentation here or check out TUAW's liveblog here. The short version:

- iPhone 2.0 Software in June
- Full Exchange support for Enterprise
- Third party app development with Beta now, coming to users in June
- EA is providing games
- iTunes Application Store coming soon to an iPhone near you.

iTunes Plus Price Drop

Apple has announced that the price of iTunes Plus tracks (higher quality and no DRM) will drop down to 99 cents making them the same price as the DRM tracks. I haven't bought any iTunes Plus tracks, only downloaded the free singles they offer, but this is great news. One of my fears about buying iTunes tracks was that someday the iTunes Music Store wouldn't be around and I would no longer be able to listen to my iTunes tracks without burning them to CD first. Unfortunately, it is still only EMI and some independent labels, but this is yet another hole in the RIAA's DRM armor.

iTones restores ability to make your own Ringtones FOR FREE

I have decided to give Ambrosia software some of my hard-earned money after they took only 72 hours to fix their iToner software which was broken by iTunes 4.7. This software allows you to turn ANY MP3 or AAC file in your iTunes library into a ringtone on the iPhone. You don't get the fun and fancy ability to shorten them to 30 seconds, and technically it is against the iTunes EULA to use iTunes-purchases songs as ringtones. But it is entirely legal to use any tune you bought for your own use as a CD. Good job, Ambrosia!

iTunes DRM free tracks not so DRM free

It seems that while Apple has removed restrictions on how you can use some iTunes tracks, they certainly haven't removed their monitoring data. Several people have written on this both in technical terms and not so technical terms, but either way it seems that Apple is still watching what we do with our purchased music. I don't know if I should feel outraged or simply cynical.