cre8d design

I’ve moaned about this before but bear with me. I’m so frustrated that iTunes hasn’t yet come to New Zealand. I’m a big music listener and frankly, I’m tired of listening to the radio while I commute. There’s just far too many ads. I love discovering new music and lately I’ve found that more and more music I like isn’t getting any airplay. When I’m online lately, I’ve been using last.fm and Pandora to discover new songs and artists.

Oh, and I’m a little obsessed with the music from Grey’s Anatomy (importing the soundtrack from Amazon because it’s not available here isn’t enough). I’ve fallen in love with Imogen Heap’s music (again, Amazon imports).

I have a good friend who’s been lending me CDs of less-mainstream artists – Evermore (beautiful album), Phoenix United, Turin Brakes, The Album Leaf, Transatlanticism and Portishead – among others.

But I’d like more music to listen to while commuting. I’d love to download a tonne of songs… but because I’m in New Zealand, it’s not easy. Our copyright laws here are well overdue for an update. You see it’s still illegal to format-shift. I.e., it’s illegal here to copy songs from your CD to your computer, iPod or cellphone. It’s illegal to make a mix tape or CD. It’s illegal to make a back-up copy of your CDs. Of course, no-one I know keeps the law in this regard – and iPods are everywhere here. Technically, the only digital music New Zealanders should have is digital music they’ve bought online.

When law changes to allow one single backup copy of our CDs (like Americans already enjoy) were proposed a couple of years ago here, the head of Sony NZ, Michael Glading, said “At the end of the day, you’re sending a message that it’s okay to copy, and that is going to kill our business,” he said. Of course, nothing has happened yet and the law is falling well the pace of technology and far behind what consumers want.

Here’s another problem: iTunes hasn’t launched here yet – presumably due to legal sagas and record companies not wanting to hand over digital sale rights. Our NZ online store options currently stand at:

1. Amplifier – MP3 format but only a limited number of New Zealand artist tracks only. No DRM which is nice. ~$1.20US for a single.
2. Coke Tunes. Try going to their site on a Mac (“the Mac version of Windows Media Player does not support the Digital Rights Management technology used to protect the music”) or in Firefox (“CokeTunes does not currently work in the Mozilla Firefox browser due to technical limitations”) and you’re turned away at the door. They don’t have anywhere near the music selection iTunes does (not all labels are on board) and the files are in WMA and have DRM. ~$1.05US for a single.
3. Digirama – WMA and DRM again. ~$1.01US for a single.

In summary: there’s currently no legal way to buy non-New Zealand music online within New Zealand for iPods. (Yes, you can illegally play around with the formats if you have the right software and convert from WMA and get rid of the DRM.)

So when TechCrunch reviews AllTunes – a Russian site which will accept overseas credit cards (unlike other online MP3 stores), naturally I was interested. Besides at a mere 9c US a song, it’s attractive financially. But is it legal? People argue both sides over at TechCrunch’s post. It seems to be taking advantage of a legal loophole there and I wonder if anything makes it back to the artist.

People are finding other ways of trying to get around the system legally – such as purchasing US iTunes gift certificates via Ebay (!), getting a friend in the US to purchase the songs on their credit card and then reimbursing via Paypal (messy and you’re paying for too many currency conversions).

Oh, and don’t get me started on the fact that there’s nothing legal to play on video iPods. No Google videos here. No TV show downloads here. *Sob*.

Territorial rights for digital content make no sense at all to me.

I can’t believe I didn’t know about Greys Matter – a blog by the writers of the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Whether you watch the show or not, read this excerpt from a recent post:

After next Sunday’s episode, I’ll try to write in more depth about the stories and the characters and why I did what I did in both episodes. Right now, my hands are tied because until you see “(As We Know It)â€? – which is the title of next Sunday’s episode – I really can’t say much without giving things away. And you know how I feel about that.

I read every last one of your posts. I always do. So do the other writers. We can’t tell you how much that feedback means to us. We don’t really check message boards and we try not to pay attention to the press. But we feel like you who post here are our core group, our friends and truth-tellers, so your words keep us going or make us think in new directions or inspire us when we are feeling as if no one is watching despite what the ratings say.

You guys kinda rock.

Kinda?

You just plain rock.

Someone’s shown them the Cluetrain Manifesto. There’s no corporate-speak here, there’s fascinating insight into why the writers wrote what they did. More of these blogs, please! Oh, and check out the number of comments each post attracts.

PS I love Grey’s Anatomy. And I love Grey’s Anatomy music. I’ve bought the soundtrack and have discovered brilliant artists such as Tegan and Sara which have no airtime here.