Article:		Apple Brings Good Karma to Online Music
Subject:		Great but !
Date:		2003-04-29 12:15:20
From:		anonymous2
Response to: Great but !
Don't assume the problem is Apple's. It may be the music company lawyers at work.

Showing messages 1 through 3 of 3.

• Great but !
  2003-04-30 09:34:59  mknepher [View]
  
  
  I'm a subscriber to emusic.com, and they recently added a large library of music from one of the big 5 (forget which one), much of which was restricted to US subscribers. Part of the problem is that an artist may be distributed on one label in one country, but distributed by another label internationally. I'm sure lining up the contracts for all that is a nightmare and a half.

• Great but !
  2003-04-29 23:36:06  eableson [View]
  
  
  An interesting side note here is that I suspect the problem lies less in the legal ramifications of the music industry, but rather in the tax implications of the various European nationalities. When I signed on (from France) I was able to get the service to work fine since I still have a US address credit card from when I lived there. The interesting part is that they properly identified the _county_ I live(d) in and charged me the appropriate sale tax as if I had made this purchase in a store in that county.
  
  This is a first that I've seen in online commerce with the ability to tie into that many tax jurisdictions and work out the billing rates and remittance details. Dealing with the Euro market gets even more confusing since they have to decide whether to offer a separate store in Euros (and we won't get into the whole price disparity that comes from that or the remaining non-Euro currencies still out there) or just let people buy in US $ and work out conversion rates - but tax accountants _hate_ that.

• Great but ! "International" customers
  2003-04-29 14:03:41  Derrick Story | [View]
  
  
  
  I think Apple is going to work hard on this one. Believe me, it's not because they don't want your Euro dollars. They do. The problem is legal in nature, and we're all tired of it.
  
  The Internet has made us one community in connectivity, but not in the other areas of commerce. This isn't an easy hurdle to overcome, but it is a very worthy endeavor.