iTunes Plus in New Zealand

31 May 2007 · 0 comments

Maria wrote an excellent post with 9 Quick and Easy Steps to Upgrade Your iTunes-Purchased Music, so I went to have a look at iTunes Plus. A while back, Apple announced that it had entered into an agreement with EMI to sell DRM-free music in the iTunes store. It promised that iTunes shoppers would have [...]

Maria wrote an excellent post with 9 Quick and Easy Steps to Upgrade Your iTunes-Purchased Music, so I went to have a look at iTunes Plus.

A while back, Apple announced that it had entered into an agreement with EMI to sell DRM-free music in the iTunes store. It promised that iTunes shoppers would have access to this music in May 2007.

iTunes copyright info. I followed the steps Maria outlined and reached the new version of the iTunes Store Terms & Conditions — it’s fairly hard to read because the font’s too small, but still, I believe I should at least skim things before I sign them.

Down in Usage Rules, clause ii, it refers me to the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development (MED) website to read about my rights and restrictions on my rights. It’s one of those stupid addresses with four, count them: four, underscores in the URL: http://www.www.med.govt.nz/templates/Page____7290.aspx. And you know what? You can neither click the URL, nor copy and paste from the iTunes Store Terms & Conditions!

Anyway, I typed and reached the page. I suspect the relevant part is that while our crazy law allows time-shifting (eg recording a TV programme to watch at a more convenient time) it doesn’t allow format-shifting (eg putting a track purchased from the iTunes Store onto a tape so I can listen to it in the car):

Copyright Protection in New Zealand | Copyright | Intellectual Property Policy: Permitted acts include:

    [snipped]
  • copying for the purposes of making copies that are in Braille;
  • subject to certain conditions, the making of a back-up copy of a computer program; and
  • recording a television programme for the purpose of making a complaint or for “time shifting” purposes so that a programme can be watched at a more convenient time.

There is no general exception to copyright infringement for private of domestic copying, including “format shifting”, of legitimately purchased recordings from one medium to another to allow playing or viewing via other devices.

The typos above belong to the MED. The many typos in the iTunes Store Terms & Conditions belong to Apple …

Hmmm, finished browsing the iTunes Store Terms & Conditions … there’s a link at the bottom to a printable version. That link opens in my web browser. Sigh. The link could have been at the top… And it’s taken me so long to read all this stuff that my Session has timed out and I have to start again from the beginning. Heck!

Anyway, even though NZ law doesn’t allow me to format shift, I’ve finally signed up and have upgraded the songs I own.

For just 30¢ more per song, choose iTunes Plus songs that feature higher quality, 256 kbps AAC encoding — twice the standard bit rate — and no DRM (digital rights management). That means you can play it on iPod and other digital music players and an unlimited number of computers

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