11/08/2007, 2:45pm, EST
Thursday, November 8th
Jay-Z bans songs on iTunes in album controversy
Hip hop star Jay-Z has banned his latest album from Apple's iTunes Store, saying that wants the "work of art" to be enjoyed in its entirety. The album, titled American Gangster and serving as the 'imaginary soundtrack' for the film of the same name, is not to be offered as individual tracks via iTunes as is customary of most works sold via Apple's digital storefront, according to WCCO.com. The decision comes after rock band Radiohead chose to sell their works only as complete albums.
British direct download service 7Digital predicts that the key to selling entire albums lies in the absence of digital rights management, or DRM for short. DRM technology protects digital media, preventing users from illegally copying or playing the content. Apple's iTunes Store still dominates digital media sales, and many industry experts cite individual track purchases as an important reason for the company's success.
The recent introduction of unprotected MP3 versions of songs that play without restrictions has encouraged users to purchase more music than they have in the past, including full albums. Some 80 percent of tracks purchased through 7Digital's store are now DRM-free, with 70 percent of those sales consisting of full albums rather than individual songs, according to Electronista.
Filed under: industry
Other story tags: digital music/video
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So by his logic, no single song should be played, hence no songs should be allowed radio play. Anyone wanna take bets one of these songs will get radio play??
He should also come up with a format that only allows people to play the CD from start to finish without skipping songs. After all, we wouldn't want to ruin his *COUGH* work of art...
What I'm more surprised about is that if he was quoted correctly that he knew the word "entirety"_
By the way, using the Radiohead model may not be a good thing.
Over 40% paid NOTHING for In Rainbows. For those that paid, the average price was $6
I personally think their fans took advantage of them, and Jay-z may find himself in a similar situation.
The album will eventually appear on iTunes once he realizes he lost 30% of his first week sales by pulling it. I was reading some hip-hop forums and a lot of fans were pissed he pulled it. A lot of them were downloading it for free from torrent sites just to spite him.
Over 40% paid NOTHING for In Rainbows. For those that paid, the average price was $6
And Radiohead is happily chortling all the way to the bank. This is a heckuva better return that they would have gotten from the industry.
They've made somewhere in the vicinity of 2-6 million in about a month.
This on an overhead MUCH lower than what the recording industry would charge.
Sorry, but that be wrong. Radio stations, by pre-ordained order, are allowed to play any freakin' thing they want, in any order, in any way. The artist has no control over how it might be played.
It's not unlike when Prince put all of the songs in his album into one CD track. (Gosh, I can't remember the album's name, but the cover still haunts me.)