James Delahunty
10 Aug 2005 19:29
Several artists and agencies in Japan are being forced to deal directly with Apple in order to add their works to Apple's Japanese iTunes Music Store because of Sony Music Entertainment's failure to come to an agreement with Apple. Sony Music Entertainment is separate from SonyBMG; the Japanese label being the only part of Sony Music to be left out of the merger. This is simply because Japan is Sony's home turf and the existence of iTunes there is more of a threat than a treat.
For example, Japanese rocker Motoharu Sano is signed with Sony but revealed on his website he plans to offer some of his songs for download on the Japanese iTunes site. "I want to deliver my music wherever my listeners are," he told Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper. Also a management agency for a number of popular Japanese bands, Amuse, has decided to maybe go against an earlier decision of not partnering with Apple and is pondering a deal.
iTunes Japan sold over 1,000,000 music downloads in just four days after it was launched. This made the Japanese launch the most successful of all countries that currently offer the service. Apple hopes that the availability of iTunes will lead to more iPod sales, a hope that does not settle well with Sony. The electronics giant sees this as a threat to Sony MP3 player devices which have already done well in the country, as well as the sale of PSPs.
Source:
The Register