Waiting for iTMS


On the day of Tiger's launch, still no word of Apple's Australian iTunes Music Store.

Forums at the Australian online Mac user site, Appletalk, have run hot with breathless discussion about the pending arrival of the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) ever since mouthy actor Russell Crowe let out the news in a closely choreographed interview with radio jock John Laws.

So it wasn't long before someone found a backdoor into Apple's iTMS staging server, registered, and started to download songs at $A1.69 each. And it wasn't much longer before Apple slammed close that backdoor, especially once the papers got hold of the yarn.

This exercise is remarkable for several reasons:

1. Apple has made progress with its music store download plans -- it has even tricked-up a natty Australian flag button icon (below).


2. Apple would unleash in the wild an insecure e-commerce website that transacts customers' confidential credit cards. That doesn't say much for the company's much-vaunted security credentials.

3. The URL of the Australian store's site was so easy to guess and penetrate.

4. Having penetrated the woefully inadequate security, that customers would be so eager to use the service that they were willing to send their financial details over a dodgy link.

5. There is so much pent-up demand for this service that people who could easily download pirate songs from peer-to-peer networks for free prefer to buy their songs at the exorbitantly inflated rate of $1.69 a single download.

6. Apple gave no formal response to this "pantsing" incident.

I am left to wonder what will happen to the credits that customers bought on the beta site and were unable to use?

Will Apple offer a refund? It formally acknowledged the purchasers in response emails, so what warranties apply?

Meanwhile, sensing that there is not long to go before the iTMS behemoth staggers through their front doors, Telstra BigPond Music and Destra have ramped up their marketing activities to lure as many customers as they can to their services.

Telstra offers 99c downloads and Destra's service is pushing its position as Australian iPod owners preferred destination for legal downloaded music, a fact I find hard to swallow.

Was this all a magnificent piece of guerilla marketing on Apple's part?

I doubt it. I have seen no evidence the company is capable of such creative marketing and engaging its fan base. This is likely just a screw-up of monumental proportions. Apple has had a few screw-ups with its infrastructure recently.

The latest thinking is that the music store will launch soon, possibly next week, once the hype over Tiger subsides.

But before you get all sweaty-palmed at the prospect of paying Apple $24 for a typical 14-song album, consider what you will do if those songs are lost.

Australian insurers will generally cover losses of your CD music library due to fire, accident or theft -- so long as you have the necessary policy coverage and keep records of the CD titles. If your music is lost or stolen the insurer will pay out a cash amount so you can buy the CDs again or get new ones.

But what happens if your hard drive crashes, the computer on which your music resides in digital form is stolen, or natural calamity takes out your precious music collection? Insurers are unlikely to cover legitimately downloaded music stored on home-brew CD-Rs or other storage media.

Who will you turn to for compensation?

Something to chew over before you give any online music store your credit card details to download that latest exclusive track from Green Day, John Mayer or, god forbid, Russell Crowe .

Posted: Fri - April 29, 2005 at 12:26 PM          

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