the new album apparently available in iTunes Belgium.
Being accessed by thousands of UK fans.
Could damage the UK chart position when it's released June 12th.
How can you limit a global internet?
Nobody has answered how this can be done or how it can be changed - or, indeed, why.
Let alone the complex situation of territorial rights.

I have nearly fallen foul of this problem for the second time this year whilst reviewing an album by a very famous artist, which I got around to last week, as I didn`t particurlarly want to hear it, (and incidently the un-named silver copy did go in one ear and out the other), only to find out that it is still not released yet, and I had been given a copy a month ago, and it is not a promo.
I honestly believe it will be years before pirating and i-tunes can be properly regulated.
When I first upped the hype on Jinder two weeks back on here and ROTD, the hit counter on the new single was around a thousand, it is now about 4000 I think.
Whilst we have had this discussion about spreading the word before, there are thousands of pounds going missing, and this must be the death nell on the industry this time.
It is virtually unmonitored.
Another worrying thing that I have noticed this weekend, is the re-birth of pay to play gigs.
A three piece band I manage, were due to play a minor festival today, and we were granted only THREE backstage tickets for the band only, crew and friends had to fork out

JK2006 wrote:
the new album apparently available in iTunes Belgium.
Being accessed by thousands of UK fans.

I thought that to use the iTunes service in a particular territory, you had to have a credit card with a billing address in that country? As I understand it, it's what stops us all using iTunes US, for example.

Or am I missing some loophole?

Interesting times indeed...

I haven't seen the article but I'm guessing this has been opened up by the iTunes EU site and the move to EU licensing...

Normally you'd be right... national credit card and sometimes a national IP address too.

Marshy wrote: "thought that to use the iTunes service in a particular territory, you had to have a credit card with a billing address in that country? As I understand it, it's what stops us all using iTunes US, for example.

Or am I missing some loophole?"

You could always use iTunes gift vouchers in any of the stores but I think Apple realised and haulted that now.

However, in the past couple of days Apple enabled customers the option to buy tracks through their BT phone line either through "click and buy" or have them chargeable to their phone bill. Perhaps this is the new loophole ?

territorial rights: Can be enforced (easy) via the payment method and the IP-address

But in a global world or at least in the common european market there should be better solutions.

Do you know the true story of the american, who lost his itunes-bought songs due to a virus?

For this kind of situations Apple lets you download the songs again, without charge.

But this guy had moved to Canada, and Apple refused his request because his l

To me this story stinks, or at least smells like a PR-Stunt

Just look at these other stories on the web today:

Keane Singer Takes Date To Lap-Dancing Bar
http://www.gigwise.com/news.asp?contentid=17965

and

Paul McCartney Makes Keane's Drummer Squeal Like a little girl....
http://www.gigwise.com/news.asp?contentid=17944

or

Keane: The Komeback
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,20061...3-2006250417,00.html

I used to worry about that but not anymore. I think the whole charts system is so outdated it is now irrelevant. Do i worry about the charts no. Will i put my music on Itunes globally yes, do i care where it charts no. I only care that it makes money and lots of it. If it charts, great if not i wont worry as long as i turn a profit from it and make money from it. If i really need a chart hit, once i've got a fanbase large enough to 'create' a chart hit, then i would re-release a popular song from the download album, package it, add more mixes etc and re-release it.

We are in a global system and the way Lily Allen, Sandi Thom etc are breaking on the net, globally is the way forward. Do we need a worldwide chart or internet chart, possibly but not essentially. What we need are new ways of determining success. I would rather have a record that peaks at no 30 but goes on to sell 50,000 over 20 weeks than a record that goes to no 1 and sells only 20,000 copies. But then again im not a major label and control the rights to all our recordings.

Of course realistically speaking the charts are not going away but getting back to Itunes, it is ridiculous that you can have a song in Itunes UK
(sugababes - someone in my bed) but not available in Itunes Australia, even though the song was released as a b side. I was only able to buy it because i have a brother in the UK and the file sharing bods were too slow. Talk about driving people to Kazaa.

If for example, I wanted an old Bowie song on my i-pod, which I already only owned on vinyl, could it really been seen as illegal, to go to a file sharing site and download it for free, as opposed to paying for a song which I had already bought in a different format?
I am sure this has come up before, even going back as far when we all re-bought our old collections on cd, but I believe people are justifying illegal downloading armed with this "right".

Martin, I would upload to Myspace. That way they're not downloaded but streamed and if someone does manage to get them then the quality isn't great. Plus right now Myspace seems to be the place to be.