just did a whois search for www.itunes.com.au - the owner is Capitol Entertainment Pty Ltd in Australia.

anyone know anything? is there going to be an Australian site?

The likelyhood of an ITMS Australia is the same as Apple bumping us further up the priority line for orders.

Australia is the last to get their ordered products and we'll be dead last to get ITMS. Apart from that the muisc industry here is a major hurdle.

Sure, any day now! iPhoto book publishing too, no doubt!

AU will get iTMS on roughly the same day that they ship my iPod, which last time i called, they basically said they'll ship it on the very day that Hell freezes over. :angry: :angry:

Late last year, I remember hearing Jon Faine on ABC radio 774, talking about how he heard that the guy responsible for introducing ITMS to Australia, finally got Apple's nod after pestering them day after day for months on end.

I don't know if this story is true, and whether it's the same person behind Caiptol Entertainment. If it is true, it's been a while. The delay could be due to further negotiations with Australian music labels.

Yeah but not by Apple, well not for a long time anyway :P

As Disko's sig says "no ITMS for you"

I have read that we will not get iTMS until our music copyright laws change ??

I don't want to buy songs encoded at 128 kbps anyway.

I used to have a pdf that was an excellent FAQ about Australian copyright law but I can't find the URL.

Basically what it said that the copyright belongs to the owner of the song. As the owner it is entirely their choice how the song is to be distributed and who it is to be used.

For example I could record a song and put it on the internet. I could then allow anyone to download the song free of charge and distribute it how ever they want. As the copyright owner that is my decision.

The same is with iTunes Music Store. If a record company decides to distribute the music, it will be distributed through the Fairplay liscence. That is why iTMS songs have Fariplay DRM, to enforce the liscence and pretect the copyright owner.

I have no idea why people think that iTMS isn't possible is Australia, the onnly big difference between our copyright laws and the U.S.A. is that we do not have a fair use policy.

I am not law expert so please correct me if I am wrong.

according to an article in SMH, the domain name was available on 10 January 2005....

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/Stor...5206055245.html

Its more likely there was just nothing on the site...

thats right...according to this article -

http://www.gadgetlounge.net/archives/2004/...au-domain-name/

Guess we will just have to wait......

i believe that Ruddock is going to introduce the fair use policy since we've now got the Free Trade Agreement with the US, and it needs to be consistent with their legislation!

is that what they're encoded at ??? bugger that ... I do all mine at 192kbps minimum.

Yeah. AFAIK, .com.au domains can't be sold outright either, so don't hold your breath on it changing hands (see auda.org.au). Not that this prevents iTMS all by itself, I mean Apple could use au.itunes.com, etc etc. The real hold-up is obviously licensing issues, and the Australian Apple market being a rounding error on their profits.