No iTunes movies for Asia
p2pnet.net News:- Crushing news for Asia: Steve Jobs isn’t going to allow Apple’s Disney iTunes movies to be sold there, and nor is there any prospect for their appearance any time soon.
So says XFN-Asia, quoting Agence France-Presse.
Apple is finishing something called iTV, a $300 box which’ll ‘allow’ people to show movies they could rent for half the price, or less, from their local video stores, on their televisions.
The dearth of iTunes flics is down to, “fears of piracy, which is rampant in much of Asia, and a tangle over licensing agreements with record and movie companies means the world’s fastest growing digital market has been shut out,” says the story.
‘We cannot comment on the specifics but it is true that iTunes is not available in Asia,’ it has Tony Li, Apple’s marketing director for Asia, saying. “That goes for music and movies.”
That means people in Asia won’t be able to download ‘new’ DRM-locked movies for $13, “if pre-ordered or during the first week,” and $15 thereafter, or old ones $10.
“In the Asia-Pacific region, iTunes is available only in Australia and Japan, the world’s second largest consumer of music after the United States,” adds XFN-Asia. “Even in Japan, some labels have refused to allow their songs onto the service.”
Also See:
XFN-Asia – Apple rules out iTunes movie service for Asia ex-Japan, September 14, 2006
half the price – Apple iTV movie downloads, April 13, 2006
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September 14th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
isnt this shit locked up with DRM anyways?? seems they would be rampant to get DRM lockdown in this area of the world just to slow down “piracy”.
they will just anger more of these younger generations who simply dont understand why they dont have access to this material that they should have.
September 14th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
“…they will just anger more of these younger generations who simply dont understand why they dont have access to this material that they should have.”
Actually thanks to the pirates the Asians WILL have access to these movies, plus all the movies that aren’t available on this “service”. The pirates have movies for sale on DVD while Hollywood’s legal customers are waiting for the DVD, or in some cases waiting for the theatrical release. They’ll probably be on DVD or VCD (do they still use those?) so no one will have to buy or rent another box, it’ll just play in whatever player they currently have.
As an added bonus the movie will play without region codes or unskippable ads. They can effortlessly make backups (to protect those Delicate Vulnerable Discs from kids), transfer to a media server’s hard drives, portable video players, and do all kinds of other things to paid for movies Hollywood won’t let legal customers do.
The only drawback to bootlegs is video quality and sometimes recording media quality is often low.
But we all knew this.