Illegal downloads 'due to lack of iTunes'
Music cannot be downloaded from the iTunes Store in Malta.
With more than 18 million songs in its database, the iTunes Store is an easy, affordable and legal way to download and enjoy music.
However, despite the store being available in other EU countries, the popular store is not available in Malta, and according to Apple there are no plans “to announce today” to change that, causing many to resort to illegal MP3 downloads.
Contacted by The Sunday Times, an Apple spokesman said music content often had different licence holders in different territories, so Apple needed agreements with all the copyright (records and publishing) holders before it could sell music and offer the same large catalogue in a new country in the iTune Store.
Ironically, while Maltese bands can sell their music in the 23 territories where the iTunes Store is available, they are not able to sell the download to the local market. Maltese users can only buy iPhone apps and download podcasts from the iTunes Store.
Other stores that do not sell digital music to the local market include Amazon.co.uk, HMVdigital and Play.com. UK-based site eu.7digital.com, meanwhile, does sell to the Maltese market, albeit with some restrictions on payment methods.
According to Steven Corn, the CEO of BFM Digital, a Los Angeles-based digital distribution company, the lack of available download stores in Malta is a combination of business and legal factors, and it could be that “the services don’t think it is worthwhile to spend legal energies to focus on Malta”.
“While there have been several efforts to make pan-EU digital download agreements, most have had only limited success at best. The reason is that each country typically has its own mechanical rights society,” Mr Corn said.
Reproduction of copyright, which is determined by a nation’s legal system, will vary from country to country.
Therefore, services like iTunes or Amazon are told they are responsible for securing a mechanical rights licence from the in each country before they can sell downloads.
“Negotiating this rate is sometimes easy and straightforward. But sometimes, it is very difficult.
Right now Canada has set rates that are not only expensive, they are confusing. So Amazon has decided not to open a Canadian store.”
Jeanine Rizzo, a local entertainment lawyer, believes the Digital Agenda for Europe, which the EU is working on, “might propose some answers. However, this must be married with willingness from the industry to open up shop in Malta”.
“Possibly they see the Maltese market as being too small, but the consequence is that people wanting to buy music are only given the option to buy physical CDs instead... unfortunately they are turning to illegal downloads and this, unfortunately, has made Malta a known hub for downloading.”
If the industry were to realise that 85 per cent of Maltese households have broadband connection, easing digital delivery, perhaps they would be tempted to offer this service, Dr Rizzo said.
Though the situation is complex, Martin Pursey from the UK’s Performers Rights Society believes there could be a way of making an online store such as iTunes work.
Since PRS has amalgamated with the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society, which collects royalties on music sales, both based in the UK, the pair could possibly convince iTunes they would be able to collect the necessary royalties of downloads sold locally, Mr Pursey said.
There would be another hurdle – the record companies themselves – and the challenge was to lobby their collection society and inform them there were territories in which music cannot be legally downloaded, Mr Pursey said.
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cmicallef
Mar 15th 2011, 15:35
To be honest itunes is not the solution, they only sell a limited amount of tracks, if your taste doesnt run to the mainstream, more obscure or less 'popular' music is impossible to find.
And it isnt just music - who wants to pay almost 800 dollars for photoshop? Or about a 100 euros for a box set. The prices are over inflated, I think people feel somewhat justified in not wanting to pay these prices and contribute to salaries for people in what is a hugely over paid industry. And it is also an industry that continues to get peoples backs up. It makes me angry when I see companies zealously getting silly little youtube fan videos removed, I can't begin to count how many fan made clips containing music i've seen and then went on to purchuse the cds. Or when they pursue copyright on clips of shows people put up. A lot of viewers of these 'illegal shows' go on to buy their over priced dvd box sets. They should think of that.
Chris Grillo
Mar 15th 2011, 20:09
You're right mate, the copyright issue is such a muddle.
Practically everybody has Photoshop here (not me, I hate it!), and I say 'There really is a heck of a lot of money in town!'... 800euros (really??), and all Malta has Photoshop! And AutoCAD... And MSOffice....and what about Windows?
I got none of those... if people want FREE, they should go for Linux, Gimp, A9CAD, and OpenOffice. I have... it's so easy to adapt, and the products are so good ! And totally, legally free..
And finally, buying online is easy and cheaper from abroad than in Malta...sadly, that is the truth...
And with us Rock fans, we do an extra effort to buy originals to reward the bands we love, but with this modern disposable music.....
D. Dimech
Mar 15th 2011, 13:54
I am sorry to say that I will NEVER buy tracks at 1euro+ each, or whatever the price may be, when I can listen to any of them for FREE on, for example YouTube and other similar sites such as soundcloud, etc...
Peter Korsten
Mar 13th 2011, 18:14
Thing is, it used to be the case that you *had* to buy an album, with two or three good tracks, and the rest rubbish. And for this, you would be charged easily €20. (When I started buying CDs in the late eighties, they were 40 guilders each, which is more or less €20.) Now you can buy individual tracks, so you just buy the ones you like, and pay less than €5. (So why Joseph Casha below thinks it's not affordable is beyond me.)
Same thing for Steam: I buy all my games from there, and can't be bothered to go to a local shop (old games, high prices) or an online one (too long a wait).
Still, even though we have all these luxuries, I find that my Maltese colleagues routinely jailbreak their Wiis and whatnot, because they simply don't *want* to pay for software, or music for that matter. I'm sure it's no different abroad, but I think opening a local iTunes music store wouldn't be worth it for more than one reason.
Dan Cohen
Mar 13th 2011, 17:20
Well, thank goodness Melita opened up access to ThePirateBay again :-D
l.azzopardi
Mar 14th 2011, 11:47
"US District Court Michael Davis said the fine imposed by a jury on Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother of four from the town of Brainerd, veered into the "realm of gross injustice
Davis slashed the fine to 54,000 dollars, or 2,250 dollars per recording, and complained in his ruling on Friday, a copy of which was obtained by AFP on Monday, that he was constrained from reducing it even further.
In December 2008, the RIAA said it will stop suing people who download music illegally and focus instead on getting Internet Service Providers to take action.
The move away from litigation represented a major shift in strategy for the music industry group, which had filed lawsuits against some 35,000 people for online music piracy since 2003."
Matthew Farrugia
Mar 15th 2011, 13:36
Vodafone aswell :)
R. Hili
Mar 13th 2011, 16:30
Unless someone or the Authorities or EU takes actions against illegal downloads. iTunes will never survive!!
Nathaniel Diacono
Mar 13th 2011, 18:04
You have no idea what you're talking about.
R_Hili
Mar 14th 2011, 00:17
@Nathaniel Diacono
I know what I am talking about. Its easy to get traced...and if you read the newspapers this was done a couple of times in US and a woman was even charged about a 1.9million dollars for downloading illegally , but never in Europe.
Jason Aquilina
Mar 13th 2011, 15:52
I'm all for iTunes to be introduced in Malta, as long as the Dragon Lady doesn't have a say in it...
Joseph Casha
Mar 13th 2011, 15:49
I beg to differ on two point:
1. Itunes is far from affordable at 1 euro per track
2. Illegal downloads will always exist whether we have itunes in malta or not.
Legal tracks can still be purchased through sites such as mp3ninja.com or goldenmp3.ru which are legal and cost a fraction of the price that itunes charges
Anthony Neil Pace
Mar 13th 2011, 16:58
Sorry, I beg to differ on your point.
In Malta we have OVER-INFLATED Prices on everything. - itunes is a lot more affordable than buying whole albums at rip-off prices that we have here.
itunes is VERY trust-worthy, Not like the sites you mentioned, and furthermore, WHY SELL iPhones and iPods if you cannot buy music for it? What if I don't want to buy a whole album for my iPod?
The same goes for iBooks store. - we have free books only to choose from on that store, and Why Own an iPad if you can't buy books on it ? - I have one, and I have to download my books from other sources, and spend alot of time converting them to eBooks.
What ever the reason, Apple should consider Malta, we have a large and growing Apple community here and it's thanks to the iPhone, iPod and iPad.
M Bugeja
Mar 13th 2011, 14:45
It is much more convenient to download a song with a couple of clicks, as opposed to physically purchasing it from the store or online - this is the premise behind the incredible success behind Valve's Steam. That + the impulse buy phenomenon.
What these associations/committees should understand, once and for all, is that people DO pay for good content. Many try before they buy (as is their right) and find the material to be substandard. A pirated copy does not equate to a lost sale - it is more than likely that someone who pirates heavily wouldn't bother to buy anything even if there was no other option. Of course, they can't acknowledge this as it would mean a loss of investor's money.
This territorial rights thing is just crippling to the economy. Case in point: Big Bang Theory, a popular show, is legally streamed on hulu and other american sites, but the only way I can see this is by downloading it off someone generous enough to have TiVo'd it. In their books, that still counts as piracy, even though there wasn't even the opportunity for me to see it legally anyway.
*IAA grow up.
Steve Sant
Mar 13th 2011, 14:41
One word: Greed and ignorance. You see Malta is being blocked by many other types of media, such as certain television shows and channels, football, and music. The problem is not only overseas, its a local one with bureaucracy and red tape, from certain distributors in Malta holding on to their rights even though their business has stopped being profitable years ago. Its tantamount of sabotage. Till that is solved, we will keep downloading.
John sant
Mar 13th 2011, 21:04
"One word: Greed and ignorance" - two words: lol
D mangani
Mar 13th 2011, 13:47
"According to Steven Corn, the CEO of BFM Digital, a Los Angeles-based digital distribution company, the lack of available download stores in Malta is a combination of business and legal factors, and it could be that “the services don’t think it is worthwhile to spend legal energies to focus on Malta”.--- ie we won't make money from malta so what is the point of giving it the legal means of downloading, just keep doind what is illegal until we decide, after all we make the money so we make the laws
Kenneth Cassar
Mar 13th 2011, 13:19
Having no option of legally downloading inferior quality mp3s is no loss when one can buy higher quality CDs and if anyone wants to, rip them as lossless files (such as flac or wav) to play on their computer.
Mp3s are the fast food of the music industry.
george mamo
Mar 13th 2011, 13:18
Anything that is illegal is always illegal
Downloading music
Making a profit from Comedy channel and UK living,
oooops sorry GO and Melita did't mean to.
Anyway you can get away with everything
Thomas Spot
Mar 13th 2011, 12:56
My solution is partly legal in the sense that I pay for music I download, but a little dodgy because the music isn't licensed for Malta. I use an American Express card (€20 every year is all it costs from BOV) and iTunes doesn't seem to have a mechanism for realising that it isn't a UK or US registered card so it allows it. I have my American Express as payment method for both US and UK stores and regularly buy music and apps from both. Works perfectly, syncs music with iTunes on the Mac so I even have a backup. iTunes will take AGES to sort out copyright issues. In the meantime we can, as usual, use a 'workaround'.
M.Brincat
Mar 13th 2011, 12:39
Close one website down, two pop up.
Create an anti-copying mechanism, a crack pops up.
This is an ongoing battle music and DVD producers can never win.
It's only normal that people avoid paying 1-2 euros for 3megabytes of music.
Ramon Casha
Mar 13th 2011, 10:45
In many ways, the illegal downloading and copying phenomenon has been fueled by the industry's inertia, which was often based on what they considered their financial priorities.
When DVDs were first introduced, they all had (and still have) an anti-copying mechanism. The industry worked with Microsoft Windows and Apple OSX to provide DVD players that could be used on these operating systems, but when it came to Linux they decided that they constituted too small a percentage of the user base to bother with. This led one hacker to take matters into his own hands, and break the encryption used on DVDs. In a classic case of bolting the stable after the horse has run, they tried to prohibit the publication of his findings, but it was too late.
Similarly, MP3 music was widely used and flourishing long before the music industry accepted that people WANTED music they could carry around in a small device or play on their computer. They ignored the need, insisting that CDs were good enough for anybody, forcing people to come up with their own solutions.
Mark Bishop
Mar 13th 2011, 13:48
Very well said and highly correct.
Chris Grillo
Mar 14th 2011, 09:25
Quite correct my friend. When I buy a CD (usually from play.com), the first thing I do is rip the tracks and put it away with my (nearly unspoilt) collection.
Who carries CDs around with him these days? And would you trust an amount of ORIGINAL CDs in your car?
isabelle borg
Mar 14th 2011, 09:56
the best comment so far.