The news broke today that the deal to put The Beatles catalogue of music onto iTunes has fallen through - after TWO YEARS of negotiations.
Paul McCartney is putting a brave face on it - in the mad world we live in, the surviving members of the band have no say whatsoever over the music they wrote.
The simple reason the deal has fallen through is greed. EMI want more money for the music than Apple is willing to pay - and you can bet that Apple had Beatles themed iPods pre-loaded with their albums lined up for the Christmas season.
If there is one thing in this world that winds me up, it is the ridiculous licensing that the music and movie industry tries to force on consumers. When you buy a CD, all you have really bought is the license for YOU to listen to that music, on the specific media you bought. If a way could be found to charge for other people also hearing it, you would be charged for that too.
When you buy a DVD, you have purchased the right for YOU to watch the DVD. Just like with CDs, strictly speaking you cannot let anybody else watch it - they should buy their own copy.
It’s getting worse.
With the advent of downloaded movies, and the latest HD displays, content is licensed for specific display quality - so if you have a higher resolution display that could theoretically up-scale the content, the content will refuse to play.
And they wonder why Pirate Bay is so successful…