iTunes

[godisinthesilences]

I apologize if this has been covered before.
But I noticed in the last two days how iTunes has removed all of David's solo work, Japan and most of the music he did with other collaborators. Anyone have a clue why this is? I have been abit let down lately with how iTunes is changing and carrying so much crappy hip hop and top 40.

I did manage to find a ton of remixes of Linoleum by Tweaker though. Some of them are pretty good.

[krausy]

I apologize if this has been covered before.
But I noticed in the last two days how iTunes has removed all of David's solo work, Japan and most of the music he did with other collaborators. Anyone have a clue why this is? I have been abit let down lately with how iTunes is changing and carrying so much crappy hip hop and top 40.

I did manage to find a ton of remixes of Linoleum by Tweaker though. Some of them are pretty good.

That is too bad Gods. I do believe however that the artist does have some say in what goes on itunes..................that is all I will say on the matter..................

What a wise move.

[John Trevethan]

I apologize if this has been covered before.
But I noticed in the last two days how iTunes has removed all of David's solo work, Japan and most of the music he did with other collaborators. Anyone have a clue why this is?

The reasons could be quite convoluted, however one possible explanation might be that David was not getting paid for any of the iTunes downloads and he may finally be getting a handle on doing something about it.

Below is a very lengthy copy of a couple of posts from Robert Fripp's diary. A similar situation happened with Robert's King Crimson work, and the problem was with Virgin Records (which of course was David's label as well, and makes me feel that this situation may apply to David's work.)

Although this is quite a bit to read it is a very interesting example of some of the things that an artist must deal with behind the scenes:

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Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004?
From: thrang ?Subject: Crimson gone from iTunes Music Store

Up until a few weeks ago, there were two or three recent releases from Crimson on the ITMS, including "Thrak" and "The Power to Believe." Now there's nothing. Did I hear somewhere that Fripp finally gained control of the entire Crimson catalogue recently, and if so, I wonder if the two events are connected… Greg

Robert Fripp: Cf this Diary for 20th. October. The licence to Virgin/EMI ended on December 31st. 2003. The re-licensing to EMI foundered on the issue of downloading. Despite Virgin/EMI never having any download rights, they put up KC downloads on June 27th. 2004 nevertheless.

Date: September 22, 2006

We are continuing to address various issues with Virgin/EMI, moving on from yesterday’s exchanges with their legal department. One of the main difficulties of Business Affairs being merged with Legal Departments, a trend of the 1990s, is that nowadays one deals with lawyers rather than business people. Business people, in the main, look to doing business through negotiation. Lawyers, in the main, deal in adversarial relationships, and look to winning or losing. Our ongoing correspondence with the lawyer we are dealing with has been going nowhere. His letters are clearly letters from a lawyer, not from a business person. We have now approached someone higher up the food chain. These are our concerns…

1.         The return of all outstanding masters & artwork for the King Crimson/RF & related catalogue held by Virgin/EMI & its affiliate companies.

2.         Securing accounting & royalties for digital sales, never held by Virgin/EMI, yet offered on occasions by Virgin/EMI via iTunes, OD2 etailers, Napster et al between 2003 & 2006.

Master Tapes & Artwork:
Virgin/EMI’s rights to physical sales of the King Crimson & related catalogue ended in December 2003.

We have been in frequent contact with Virgin/EMI’s legal dept. since 2004, but have failed to secure the return of all tapes associated with this catalogue. In particular, there has been no return of a number of tapes, artwork, video & other materials held by Virgin, Caroline & its manufacturers in the USA & Virgin/EMI Japan. This includes master tapes, copy masters & any other materials inherited from previous licensees in the USA. There is also an issue of replacing art materials acknowledged as missing/unlikely to be found by Virgin UK.

With regard to these tapes/artwork we have been told by the Virgin/EMI legal dept. at various times:

i)          Virgin/EMI have looked. They can’t be found.

ii)         Why should Virgin/EMI return tapes from the USA & Japan?

iii)        We’ll look again - but have limited powers over our American & Japanese affiliates.

iv)        We may have found some tapes. Robert Fripp needs to sign further letters of indemnity before we can return them. (I offered such indemnities - unnecessary though they are. The tapes remain unreturned).

v)         We’re not sure you’re entitled to the tapes - even if the rights have reverted.

vi)        I’ve looked at the paperwork again. I’m not sure all the albums claimed as reverted have reverted. (This despite the fact that copies of the reversion letters accompanying the Settlement agreements dealing with reversion are held by Virgin & Robert Fripp).

vii)       Sometimes major labels lose all an artist’s master tapes. Stuff happens. (This ignores EMI’s duty of care towards all master tapes).

The delays in returning these tapes has resulted in cancelled/delayed release plans by the current licensees.

Digital Masters:

Virgin/EMI’s legal department accepts that the company never had digital licenses for the King Crimson/RF & related catalogue. Despite this, Virgin/EMI has, on a number of occasions, permitted the offer of sale & sales of digital content. This happened both prior to, and following the end of, the expiry of the license for the sale of physical goods in December 2003.
 
A number of the licenses with the likes of OD2 etailers & iTunes Europe were only enacted in 2004 & later - when the return of all related materials had already been made. We had to request the take down of the files from these sites several times throughout 2004. We requested the destruction of all files & confirmation of this destruction to avoid repeat instances. Files continued to re-appear via OD2 related retailers, Napster & iTunes into 2006.

With regard to Digital rights we have been told by the Virgin/EMI Legal?dept. at various times:-

i)          We’ll look into it.

ii)         We’re doing what we can.

iii)        We have little control over these people - meaning iTunes, Napster, OD2.

iv)        How do you know they’re getting the stuff from us? (Napster, OD2 & iTunes all confirmed that any licenses for King Crimson came via EMI).

In lodging complaints with Virgin/EMI’s legal dept., we have become used to the impression that our requests for the copyrights to be respected are regarded as something of an irritant. Such requests have only been made necessary by Virgin/EMI’s continued failure to police rights offered by Virgin/EMI, rights that were never Virgin/EMI’s to offer at any point. Despite repeated requests to the legal department & assurances that the matter would be dealt with, no accounting or royalties as a result of these digital sales has ever been received.

This is just another day in the music industry.
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[godisinthesilences]

you know i sort of thought this might be the case..... thanks for the insight into this.

[krausy]

Thanks for that post John..

I have read recently in a music publication that most of the big recording companies/labels were approached years ago at the start of the downloading "phenomenon"if you will (Napster, itunes, etc) to be a part of it all and basically most of them did not take up on it , one reason being they did not seem to think it a threat to their bottom line

Hindsight is definitely 20/20.

I feel for Mr Fripp's plight and am not surprised he is getting the run-around---seems to be the specialty of business today from Dunkin Donuts to Morgan Stanley...............sad. Many artists have been battling this and similar issues for years. Like you say John, another day in the life........

One just never knows though..............

[godisinthesilences]

ok this is really wacky..... today i just checked and some of david's music is back.


boy is iTunes a jumbled mess, but i really do appreciate having it because i purchase a lot of music i wouldn't otherwise be able to find.

[New Romantik]

iTunes is highly overrated. I never find what I am looking for and the selection is getting thinner and thinner. Soon all they will carry is rap and other current musical styles.

I fear, and please do not fault me for saying this, the only way to aquire good MP3s of JAPAN is Limewire or Torrent files. There's also eBay for the CDs and LPs (which I really want)

But iTunes, tsk tsk tsk...

[proggrl]

good MP3s

A part of me wants to be an audio elitist and call this the definition of an oxymoron.

[New Romantik]

Whatever floats your boat ...I don't know what I would have done had I not found out about MP3s...I'd be digging through the Walmart Discount CD bin for a decent album (which they never end up having)
If I get the chance, I will pay my respects to the band and buy an album ...but where I live all we have is Walmart or Goodwill to buy music...and Goodwill's stock is mostly of Barbara Streisand LPs....

[godisinthesilences]

hhmmm i find lots of interesting music on iTunes. For what I'm looking for it is fine sound quality wise. If i want good sound i get a cd and I will search the internet high and low to find it.
I've gotten great cds on amazon that were very hard to find (Thunder by Andy Taylor for instance).

To be honest i have never gotten a good anything off of Limewire.... well except a form of software which I didn't acquire myself my friend's husband got for her mac. Sharing is GOOD!!!!!

[VaporTrail]

good MP3s

A part of me wants to be an audio elitist and call this the definition of an oxymoron.

You'd be quite correct

[New Romantik]

Well I like 'em. But I guess I like anything I can get my hands on...
(I'm referring to MP3s...which I have like 20 JAPAN songs saved on my computer...I feel so low right now, so unloyal...)

[proggrl]

:roll: Well I like 'em. But I guess I like anything I can get my hands on...
(I'm referring to MP3s...which I have like 20 JAPAN songs saved on my computer...I feel so low right now, so unloyal...)

Well - we don't mean the music obviously! In some cases it's the best and easiest way to find and acquire music (without having the actual CD). I'm just saying in terms of format and audio quality - MP3's aren't the greatest.

Now ONLY having 20 Japan songs saved to your computer - You have some catching up to do there, my good man!

[New Romantik]

Now ONLY having 20 Japan songs saved to your computer - You have some catching up to do there, my good man!

Yeah, I have to dodge the thousands and thousands of copies of "Quiet Life" to get some of the rare-er stuff.

[heartofdavid]

The mentions of Goodwill and the difficulty of coming across hard-to-find items made me think of how I go about filling out my music collection, and it seems to differ from many of the folks here. I don't download, haven't for many years, mostly because I found it a pain it the arse and never came across anything I thought was that great. That's probably changed now with iTunes but I still can't be bothered with it.

I get the majority of my music from used record/cd shops and thrift stores. I got the Andy Taylor album that's mentioined above at my local used cd shop, very good condition, $2.99. I guess it does depend upon where you live if you have access to any places like those, but the few near me have a lot of good stuff - but you have to dig and visit often. Years ago I found 2 copies of Ingrid's cd, 99 cents each, bought them both and sent one to a friend. My entire Duran cd collection, except for Astronaut, came from the used shop. I've picked up Opeth, Anathema, Beth Orton, Sakamoto...pretty much name the artist and they can be found.

Right now the local record shop, a small place called Threshold Music, has the first two Japan LPs in the used bin, $1 and $2, in very good condition. The used music places don't take things that are in poor condition (which differs from Goodwill type places who take anything that's donated) because they wouldn't be able to resell it.

I also like to go to record conventions. I live outside of Chicago and in the suburbs there's often a record convention taking place - small but a treasure trove if you're willing to take the time to look. A few months ago I picked up the Japanese boxed cd single of Heartbeat (including postcards) for $1 - sitting among a pile of junk in a beat-up cardboard box on a vendor's table. SOLD! There are always some pricier collectibles too, had a lot of PT stuff which I wasn't willing to shell out money for. Conventions are great place to check out vinyl, cds, books, posters, etc., and a hell of a lot cheaper than ebay.

Never exclude a source for music, even garage sales, because you never know what you might find, plus it's a lot of fun.

Outside of new releases from Samadhisound, or PT, or Duran, I don't buy anything new. Could be that I'm cheap, lol, but I know that if I hear something I like, chances are I'll find it at one of these places. Pretty much any new release cd will show up at the used cd shop within a week of the release date, and I'd rather pay $4 or $5 for it there than the rip-off prices elsewhere. The used shops by me allow for returns of damaged items within 60 days, so if something is scratched or whatever, you get your money back - but I've never had a problem with anything I've bought.

Uh, sorry for the long ramble.