Sony, Michael Jackson's Estate Tell Apple to Beat It, Skip iTunes with New Album
By Peter Kafka
On 8:08 am EDT, Wednesday October 14, 2009
After Michael Jackson died, fans flooded iTunes to snap up his music. But when “This Is It“, the singer’s final work, comes out this month, they’ll have to look somewhere else: Apple’s digital store won’t be selling the album.
So says Digital Music News, citing “confidential information”. The problem, supposedly, is that Sony (SNE) and Jackson’s estate want to sell the entire double album as a set, while Apple insists that all of the music it sells needs to be available as singles.
I’m checking with Sony and Apple to confirm, but the story is a familiar one, because it’s a longstanding dispute between Apple (AAPL) and the music business. The industry, for both financial and artistic reasons, has tried to keep music bundled together, while Apple insists on selling it a la carte.
Apple usually wins these disputes: Even the stubborn iconoclasts in Radiohead eventually bowed to Steve Jobs’ will and turned their precious albums into individual songs.
If there is a clamor for the new Jackson music online, it will reportedly benefit Amazon (AMZN), whose MP3 store does offer album-only releases.
But I’m not sure how loud the clamor will be: As best I can tell, the “new” release only contains a smattering of Michael Jackson you haven’t heard before: Two versions of the title song, plus “a recently discovered spoken word poem”.
The rest? Greatest hits you can already buy, song-by-song, on iTunes.
Well, well...
Sony: Michael Jackson Album Will be Sold on iTunes, Contrary to Report
Michael Jackson’s posthumous album This Is It will be sold through iTunes, Sony told Wired.com, contradicting a Digital Music News report that Apple’s policy of insisting that songs be sold individually had cost it the chance to sell the album.
“I’m happy to report that [that] story is incorrect,” said Epic Records (Sony) senior vice president of publicity Lois Najarian. “Michael Jackson’s This It It album will indeed be for sale on iTunes on October 27th. I don’t have much more information to impart other than that right now, but suffice to say fans will be able to purchase it there.”
If Sony is right, either Michael Jackson’s people have agreed to let iTunes sell songs from the album individually, or Apple has reversed its longstanding policy of insisting that songs on albums also be sold individually in iTunes. We’ve asked Sony and Apple about this and hope to have an answer shortly.
“I know that’s the question of the day and they are working on that now,” said Najarian, when asked about the bundling issue.
This widely-anticipated album includes only one new track, also called “This Is It” (listen), which was co-written by Michael Jackson and Paul Anka in 1983, although four demos and a poem are also included. By making this only available as a complete album, Sony and Jackson’s estate would be able to force fans who want to buy the new track and the four demos to purchase 14 tracks they probably already own.
“Seriously? Just the one new song, and only four demos on the second disc? I won’t be buying this,” wrote Amazon commenter Ian Roegels. “I’ll just buy the few tracks I don’t have on iTunes.”
He and others will indeed be able to cherrypick the new songs from iTunes — unless Apple has reversed its anti-bundling policy. Again, we hope to have an update on that soon.
In related news, Apple has budged in another important area related to album sales, by opening up the specs for its iTunes LP program (formerly known as Project Cocktail) so that artists and labels can include album art, videos, images, lyrics, liner notes, and so on with their albums. Earlier reports claimed that Apple was charging the labels $10,000 a pop to create iTunes LPs, but Apple clarified its new stance to Wired.com.
“We’re releasing the open specs for iTunes LP soon, allowing both major and indie labels to create their own,” said Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told Wired.com. “There is no production fee charged by Apple.”
Michael Jackson’s This Is It album will be available on October 27 digitally and in CD form, and on November 10 in the vinyl format.
https://www.wired.com/epicenter/200...um-will-be-sold-on-itunes-contrary-to-report/
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at the same time.
