Reuters: Some Bands Spurn Apple’s iTunes Online Music Store
Rock bands The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica are refusing to make their music available as individual downloads on Apple Computer Inc’s AAPL.O iTunes online music store, a representative for the bands, said on Wednesday.
That move comes in response to Apple’s decision to allow users to buy single tracks and is intended to protect the future of the long-playing album, the format that has dominated the music industry for decades, an agent for the bands said.
“Our artists would rather not contribute to the demise of the album format,” said Mark Reiter, with Q Prime Management Co., which manages the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica and several other artists.
Green Day and Linkin Park, according to a source familiar with the situation, have also refused to make their songs available as individual downloads on the Apple service, which has already sold more than 5 million songs since launching this spring.
According to Reiter, Apple refuses to sell albums in their entirety unless the artists also allow the tracks on the album to be sold independently as digital downloads.
“We can’t let a distributor dictate the way our artists sell their music,” Reiter said, adding that the business terms were otherwise acceptable.
Apple had no immediate comment.
Calling the issue more a “creative issue than a financial issue,” Reiter said the artists felt that if consumers can download their singles, they are less apt to buy entire albums.
“If you download a single, you may ignore the other tracks on the album,” he said. “When our artists record a body of work, it’s what they deem to be representative of their careers at that time.”
Related Posts
- Holdout Bands Give In to iTunes
- iTunes downloads top 500 million mark
- iTunes presses play on video
- RealNetworks attacks iTunes head on
- iTunes 4.5.0.31
Loading ...
