Charles on… anything that comes along

I wrote a story for Monday’s paper which didn’t get in: it began “Apple will this week sign a deal with independent labels to put bands such as the White Stripes on its online iTunes Music Store in Europe”. I knew, because I’d been speaking to the people doing the wheeling and nearly-ready-for-dealing.

The piece didn’t appear. Pressures of space. Or else just toooooo boring to tell people. (I don’t know the precise reason - I’ve been on holiday this week, so haven’t asked the newsdesk.)

And I had it in mind to put up a post here on Monday to say it was going to happen, but first I had other things to do, such as self-harm through cutting bramble hedges. Only cut through the electric cord twice.

Anyway, now they’ve done the deed, and inked the deal: Major Indie Music Labels Join Apple’s iTunes Music Store in Europe tells you it all.

Interesting thing about it being that Apple, having been rebuffed, began pursuing the indie labels individually. And they individually spoke to each other, and hammered out what the terms they’d settle for were, and took those back to Apple. A nice example of divide and rule vs all for on, and one for all.

Once the Euro iTMS has The White Stripes, though, I think that’s game over. iPod nation? iPod planet, more like.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Why more indie music isn't on the iTunes Music Store (21 September 2004; score: 88.95%)
• Microsoft packages, and fixing the iTunes Music Store (someone else did) (11 March 2006; score: 86.11%)
• Best and worst value on the iTunes Music Store (3 August 2004; score: 84.6%)