On Saturday, June 14, 2003, at 02:17 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
* Only exception: if a song is over 7 minutes long, they won't offer it as a separate download. It will be available as part of the album only.
Er, that basically means large swaths of Classical music by the track is never going to be offered on iTunes.
Not necessarily.
<http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html>
Let 'em know what you think.
Is there any at all now?
Actually, yes. Contrary to what the CDBaby guy stated, I have actually run into the odd 7+ min track available for individual download.
One is the Miles Davis double album "Get Up With It." There is no "album" rate for this record, it's by song only -- which makes sense given it's a two CD set with a grand total of eight tracks on it, so by Apple's rules, Sony would have to offer the entire thing for $6.99 (since full album downloads have to be less expensive than buying the album track by track). Track 1, Disc 1 "He Loved Him Madly," is 32:15 long -- and is available for $0.99 download. As is "Calypso Frelemo," which is 32:07 -- and every other 7+ minute track on the album. So if you've ever wanted to pick up "Get Up With It," it can be yours for $7.92!
I also did a quick search for a handful of classical "hits" that are over 7 minutes long, to see if they would be available for $0.99 download.
Rhapsody in Blue - yes.
Bolero - yes.
Toccatta & Fugue in D minor - no.
Rach 2, 2nd movement - yes. (Other movements - no, if you want the rest, you gotta buy the whole album).
Concierto de Aranjuez - 2nd movement - yes. (And the other two movements are under 7 minutes, so you could buy the whole concerto for $2.97.)
Barber's Adagio for Strings - depends on the version (some yes, some no).
1812 Overture - same thing, some versions available at $0.99, others require full album download.
So evidently, right now the classical music situation in the iTMS has a lot of kinks in it. Selling classical music is a lot more complicated than selling pop tunes -- purely from a logistical standpoint (as anyone who's ever worked in the classical department of a record store can tell you). I'm actually surprised that they allow you to download individual movements without downloading the entire work at all. There are other problems -- right now there's no way to browse by composer (composers and artists are all jumbled together) and no way to browse by last name at all (everything is by first name). There's no way to browse by instrument. There's no easy way to specify "I want *this* work performed by *this* soloist with *this* orchestra. There's also no way of knowing whether what you are looking for is available on CD but just not part of the iTMS, out of print, or never existed in the first place.
Hopefully these problems will eventually be worked out, along with a better, consistent policy on 7+ minute tracks.
- Darcy
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