Apple launches iTunes Music Store in Japan

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Apple today launched its iTunes Music Store in Japan, giving music fans the same features, pricing, integration with iPod and personal use rights that have made iTunes the number one online music service in the world.



With one million songs priced at just ¥150 and ¥200 per song, plus Apple?s ease of use and features such as built-in support for Podcasting, the iTunes Music Store in Japan is one of the best ways for Mac and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music online.



Apple's iTunes Music Store remains the number one online music store with over 500 million songs purchased and downloaded worldwide, and works with iPod, the world?s most popular digital music player with over 21 million sold.



?iTunes and iPod are leading the digital music revolution,? said Steve Jobs, Apple?s CEO. ?We are thrilled to be bringing the iTunes Music Store to Japan, and hope music fans here love it as much as others around the world do.?



The iTunes Music Store in Japan debuts with local favorites including iTunes Originals from globe and Ulfuls, exclusives from Def Tech, Crazy Ken Band, Chara, Little Creatures, Chie Ayado and The Complete B?z digital box set. Other iTunes exclusives released today include music from international artists such as U2, Jack Johnson and Björk, and over 10,000 audiobooks are available, including works by Japanese authors.



The iTunes Music Store in Japan also includes a wide variety of Japanese-language Podcasts, such as InterFM, Sotokoto and Radio Nikkei.



In celebration of the iTunes Music Store launch in Japan, Apple is hosting live music performances throughout August at all four retail locations in Japan, including the new Apple Store Shibuya which opens August 6.



Apple today also announced the worldwide availability of early Abkco catalog titles from classic artists such as Sam Cooke and The Animals, as well as the Rolling Stones.



iTunes is offering music fans worldwide the opportunity to pre-order a special version of the new Rolling Stones album ?A Bigger Bang? with an exclusive bonus video.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 23
    gperksgperks Posts: 3member
    I don't see Japan in the list of music stores. From iTunes click on Choose Store next to your country flag near the upper left.



    I want to believe this story but...
  • Reply 2 of 23
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AppleInsider

    [B]Apple today launched its iTunes Music Store in Japan, giving music fans the same features, pricing, integration with iPod and personal use rights that have made iTunes the number one online music service in the world.



    Well, that wouldn't be the same pricing, at 150-200yen. That's 50-100 percent more expensive than the American store, and much more than that compared to the Canadian store.



    And I don't see it mentioned anywhere on the Japanese Apple pages or in iTunes. Where is it?
  • Reply 3 of 23
    ideathideath Posts: 4member
    it won't let me download...the download form is blue...





    is it because i am not located in Japan?



    ..been waiting for this for a while!
  • Reply 4 of 23
    http://www.apple.com/jp/itunes/store/



    Oh, there it is - but it's still not linked from the main page, and it still doesn't appear in iTunes. It's not because you're not in Japan - I'm in Japan, and I've got nothing...
  • Reply 5 of 23
    ideathideath Posts: 4member
    thanks!

    4

    the

    info
  • Reply 6 of 23
    It's up now!
  • Reply 7 of 23
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    here's some "Good As Gold" information off a TUAW comment on the motherFUCKERS that are holding back the iTunes Australia store (excuse my french). SonyBMG Australia, good on ya, mate. by the time you wake up to the lost profits because of your greed, the revolution would not only have been televised, broadcast, podcast, but bitTorrented and pirated to hell as well. good luck, ya fucking WANKERS.



    get this:

    "...SonyBMG is understood to be fighting to have Microsoft's WMA format and Sony's own ATRAC format added to iTMS..."

    FUCKING HELL. Can record execs get any stupider??





    "As reported in today's Australian Financial Review:

    http://afr.com/premium/articles/2005/08/03/1122748?



    Protracted negotiations preventing the launch of Apple's iTunes Music Store in Australia are costing the music industry dearly by creating music pirates who may never return to buying music even after Apple's store appears, PricewaterhouseCoopers warned yesterday.



    Releasing its fourth annual Australian Entertainment and Media Outlook report, which found that only $100,000 worth of music downloads were sold in Australia last year, PwC also warned that radio stations could be well positioned to steal a big share of the internet music market, especially if Australia continued to lag the rest of the world with legal music downloads.



    Apple has been trying to launch its iTunes Music Store (iTMS) in Australia for the past several years, but an impasse with at least one major record label, SonyBMG Music, has kept it out of the market. First launched in the US in early 2003, the online store has proved to be the single biggest driving force in the uptake of legal music download services in the rest of the world.



    "Each day without iTunes Music Store is a day when more and more people will resort to piracy," warned Matthew Liebmann, author of the PwC report.



    "When you look at digital downloads, we are a lagging nation. We do have BigPond Music and ninemsn and some other services, but unless you have iTunes you're just not in the game.



    "The longer we delay, the more people go towards piracy [and] take matters into their own hands, and the industry would be foolish to think they'll all come rushing back to paid models once the big gun iTunes comes into the marketplace," Mr Liebmann said.



    PwC predicts that the legal music download business will grow by an average of 169per cent a year between now and 2009, climbing from a "negligible" $100,000 in sales last year to $14million by the end of the decade. "If you don't embrace the technology today, you risk it going to the pirates, and you will never get that revenue back," he said.



    SonyBMG Music, one of Australia's two biggest record labels, is still locked in negotiations with Apple over the launch of iTMS in Australia, delaying the release of the service in Australia.



    Industry insiders say one sticking point is that SonyBMG wants Apple to increase the number of digital formats supported by the store.



    Apple sells music that features digital rights management technology known as FairPlay, which prevents it being played on any portable music players other than Apple's own iPod players. SonyBMG is understood to be fighting to have Microsoft's WMA format and Sony's own ATRAC format added to iTMS, to allow players from other manufacturers (including Sony) to work with music purchased from the popular online store.



    Mr Liebmann said the battle to get iTMS launched here could still be moot in the long run because it was the radio stations, not the internet stores, that had the real opportunity to own the legal download market.



    "Radio is in the position to own music. You listen to the radio to learn about new songs. It's the prime way to do it," he said.



    "If these guys can start embracing the technology that will allow people to discover the music, and then buy the ring tone or ideally buy the track, they'll start to capitalise on the marketing benefits that they offer."

  • Reply 8 of 23
    gene cleangene clean Posts: 3,481member
    Hold your horses man.



    "It's just a game man..." - (would say The Dude )
  • Reply 9 of 23
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gene Clean

    Hold your horses man. "It's just a game man..." - (would say The Dude )



    ok. chilled out now. good stuff though from the person that reposted the australian financial review (AFR) news article, AFR is like the wall street journal of australia.
  • Reply 10 of 23
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
  • Reply 11 of 23
    curmicurmi Posts: 70member
    Looks like the Japanese iTMS has no Sony content either!



    So Japan just went ahead without Sony! Australia should do the same!
  • Reply 12 of 23
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by jrpacman

    Well, that wouldn't be the same pricing, at 150-200yen. That's 50-100 percent more expensive than the American store



    35-80 (and 28-71 without sales tax), but who's nitpicking
  • Reply 13 of 23
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by curmi

    Looks like the Japanese iTMS has no Sony content either!

    So Japan just went ahead without Sony! Australia should do the same!




    yup, that's what i am hearing from appletalk.com.au re: Japan iTMS no got sony artistes



    right now steve jobs is probably making his last offer to the dickheads at Sony Music Australia.



    and Sony Connect downloadable music service is not available currently in australia IIRC, there's only bigPond (Australia's equivalent of SBC) and NineMsn (msn.com in australia) ~ which apparently haven't done much business, just aud$100,000 in sales, according to a PriceWaterhouseCoopers report, which probably means less than 100,000 songs sold in a year.



    interesting. let's look at the number of people per iPod.

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/techno...?oneclick=true



    US: 300,000,000 people. 22 million ipods



    australia: 20,000,000 people. 4.4 million ipods sold in 2004 alone. let's assume it's now at 5 million.



    US:----1 in every 13.6 people has an iPod

    AUS: --1 out of every 4 people have an iPod...!



    nineMSN and bigPond music sales: let's assume they sold 100,000 songs.



    now, lets say out of 5 million australian iPod owners, each owner buys an average of 20 songs. which is a conservative estimate based on calculations of: http://www.tuaw.com/2005/06/15/itunes-per-ipod/



    5 million x 20 = 100 million songs



    hence, it is possible that apple iTMS could eventually be doing millions of dollars worth of songs per year, instead of the $100,000 so far.



    sony wants not only a piece of this money, but hopes that it will flow on to its mp3 players by iTMS australia supporting atrac3 and wma.



    now, lets see if steve gives a shit about the potential iTMS australia market.



    apple has sold 500,000,000 songs. on a conservative estimate, lets say iTMS australia in 2 years sells 10,000,000 songs.



    australia potentially represents 2% of worldwide iTMS sales



    a small figure, but the number of people - per - ipod is much lower than usa, remember...



    anyway, my calculations are just a model used to explore how concerned apple and sony are about legal music downloads in australia. other geeks feel free to get your pocket calculators out and run some numbers to correlate.



    the way i see it apple has various options:

    1. fuck sony off and go ahead without sony music australia

    2. make them a final offer, sony deals with fairPlay aac

    3. take a higher percentage of music sales in exchange for making .wma (how would they license this????) downloads available in australia only, alongside .aac



    i imagine the above is listed in order of most likely, with apple making atrac3 songs available at no 4., with a 0.0000% chance of happening

    ....................
  • Reply 14 of 23
    ajmasajmas Posts: 597member
    The computer and record industries really need to see where we are going with DRM and future formats. A few thing to note about the formats:



    - AAC is owned by Dolby, and is part of the MPEG4 specification, and Apple has slapped on Fairplay. Currently in this form will only play on iPods

    - Atrac which is owned by Sony, with Sony DRM. Currently will only play on Sony media players, originally developed for the Mini-disc player.

    - WMA is owned by Microsoft with Microsoft DRM. Currently runs on a large selection of media players, except Sony and Apple solutions.



    None of these formats in their current form inspire me confidence. Because of DRM I would rather pay for a CD in regular store. There is a power game here, and even Apple is guilty of trying to control the market. If it is not for control, why are they not licensing out the AAC/Fairplay solution to other portable media companies. Sony really should get with the times and start supporting other formats - heck their first "MP3" player *only* supported Atrac and then later on they added MP3 support because they realised they made a fatal error. IMHO, Sony is still making media players that just don't cut it.



    You have to provide customers with a certain amount of freedom, and risk some piracy, or risk all with short-sight choiced and have no sales. The latter seems to be the road thay Sony is going down.



    I must admit that for the sake of the customer, and competition, I just hope that there is some form of backlash and that all these companies, including Apple, get slapped with anti-monopoly fines, just to open up the market a bit. I own an iPod, but I feel a market is healthier when there is proper competition. I know Steve probably couldn't care less, but I think some should make him play ball.



    BTW at this point in time, Apple should shun Sony in Australia, unless they are the main distributor. If they are the main distributor, then I can understand why this is so difficult.



    Just because I have been an Apple customer since 1985, does not mean I neee to wear blinkers.
  • Reply 15 of 23
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    ajmas, i agree in principle with what you are saying about the state of DRM. personally, i sleep better at night knowing that at least apple is delivering good value to the consumer, it just works.



    'slapping' fairplay onto aac and locking you into an iPod is, not so cool. however remember that there are legal conversion and burning options that allow you to take that fairplay aac song and change it into a 'yours forever' format. (convert to mp3, burning to cd, etc.)



    conversely, ipods will play virtually *any* mp3 song AFAIK, so i think there is enough scope that apple is not too much of a big meanie yet



    lets focus on bashing m$ and sony first
  • Reply 16 of 23
    ajmasajmas Posts: 597member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sunilraman

    lets focus on bashing m$ and sony first



    Of course, but we need to find the faults at Apple, in order to bash the competition more effectively.
  • Reply 17 of 23
    wnursewnurse Posts: 427member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AppleInsider

    Apple today launched its iTunes Music Store in Japan, giving music fans the same features, pricing, integration with iPod and personal use rights that have made iTunes the number one online music service in the world.



    With one million songs priced at just ¥150 and ¥200 per song, plus Apple?s ease of use and features such as built-in support for Podcasting, the iTunes Music Store in Japan is one of the best ways for Mac and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music online.



    Apple's iTunes Music Store remains the number one online music store with over 500 million songs purchased and downloaded worldwide, and works with iPod, the world?s most popular digital music player with over 21 million sold.



    ?iTunes and iPod are leading the digital music revolution,? said Steve Jobs, Apple?s CEO. ?We are thrilled to be bringing the iTunes Music Store to Japan, and hope music fans here love it as much as others around the world do.?



    The iTunes Music Store in Japan debuts with local favorites including iTunes Originals from globe and Ulfuls, exclusives from Def Tech, Crazy Ken Band, Chara, Little Creatures, Chie Ayado and The Complete B?z digital box set. Other iTunes exclusives released today include music from international artists such as U2, Jack Johnson and Björk, and over 10,000 audiobooks are available, including works by Japanese authors.



    The iTunes Music Store in Japan also includes a wide variety of Japanese-language Podcasts, such as InterFM, Sotokoto and Radio Nikkei.



    In celebration of the iTunes Music Store launch in Japan, Apple is hosting live music performances throughout August at all four retail locations in Japan, including the new Apple Store Shibuya which opens August 6.



    Apple today also announced the worldwide availability of early Abkco catalog titles from classic artists such as Sam Cooke and The Animals, as well as the Rolling Stones, making the iTunes Music Store the only online music service in the world to feature the complete digital music catalog of the Rolling Stones.



    iTunes is offering music fans worldwide the opportunity to pre-order a special version of the new Rolling Stones album ?A Bigger Bang? with an exclusive bonus video.
    [ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]




    Wow, is this reporting or an apple press release?. Cause reading this, i get the feeling this is an Apple press release. I didn't realize that Apple used secondary outlets for press releases.
  • Reply 18 of 23
    frawgzfrawgz Posts: 547member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by jrpacman

    Well, that wouldn't be the same pricing, at 150-200yen. That's 50-100 percent more expensive than the American store, and much more than that compared to the Canadian store.



    The reason being Japanese CDs are generally 50-100 percent more expensive than CDs in America, if not more.
  • Reply 19 of 23
    Damn, I just left Japan today so I couldn't be there for the Shibuya opening... I did see the store though. Definitely smaller than the Ginza one.
  • Reply 20 of 23
    fulmerfulmer Posts: 171member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by frawgz

    The reason being Japanese CDs are generally 50-100 percent more expensive than CDs in America, if not more.



    The average CD here in Japan is 3000yen (about $25-$30 depending on the exchange rate).



    IT'S A TOTAL RIP OFF!!! The record labels are price fixing the whole market.



    But on the flipside, you can go to the local video rental store and rent a CD, copy it, return the original (not that I'm advocating that, but it's done all the time).



    Another thing to think about is the cost of living is higher here in Japan too... But not 2x that of America where you can get a CD for around $15....
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