Apple Wants to Open Song Vaults

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Building the iTunes Music Store library is a collaborative effort that even Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs participates in. The programming director of the store is a former radio deejay who's constantly looking for places to find old and out-of-print music. His team of music programmers are experts in world music, hip-hop, rock and classical, to name a few genres. In addition to their own expertise, the iTunes staff regularly collects suggestions from Apple Computer employees, customers and anyone who's looking to fill a hole in his or her music collection.

"Even Steve himself will occasionally send me an e-mail pointing me in the direction of a missing album or artist that he's looking for, and we'll go and find it," said Alex Luke, director of music programming and label relations for iTunes. ITunes, the leader of the digital music services pack, has a catalog of over 700,000 songs -- but that's not nearly enough for Apple. To maintain its lead, the company is on a hunt to find exclusive music, everything from out-of-print singles in music company vaults to songs that have never been pressed onto a CD and even recordings from the estates of deceased artists.

News source: Wired

UPDATE: On a side note, Microsoft has also updated MS01-052, and MS04-14 yesterday. The details are listed below.

MS01-052

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-052.mspx

Reason for re-release: Bulletin updated to advise of the availability of an update for Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition. This update addresses an additional denial of service vulnerability.

Originally posted: October 18, 2001
Updated: May 11, 2004
Version: 3.0

MS04-014

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS04-014.mspx

Reason for re-release: Microsoft has released a revised version of the Windows XP security update that contains the correctly localized optional Jet error strings.

Originally posted: April 13, 2004
Updated: May 11, 2004
Version: 2.0

#1 DJ Prem on 12 May 2004 - 17:14

that is gonna be a huge task

#2 Corvanus on 12 May 2004 - 17:17

Ahhhh, this is how it should be. There are MANY album titles that are out of print or are VERY difficult to find. I think that bringing those rare and hard-to-find titles to the masses are one sure way to keep any online music consumer very happy.

#3 Corvanus on 12 May 2004 - 17:20

I agree with you, DJ. It will be a huge task, but just think of how good it will be to have something that you've been looking for a very long time to be available at the click of a mouse button

#4 astrokat on 12 May 2004 - 17:42

from a hip hop prespective, i was happy to see the entire death row catalog available on itunes (although it looks like some things are still missing - good attempt none the less), i hope apple does more things like this. I been hunting down albums from the early 90's and 80's ... and it's almost impossible to find stuff - particularly singles.

#5 Corvanus on 12 May 2004 - 17:57

Here is a thought. I sent a suggestion to Apple at http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html for an album that it currently out of print. I provided them with the name of the artist, album title, year of release and the ASIN number assigned to the album (pulled from looking at the album at Amazon.com). I figured that if we all send suggestions with as much information as possible, it can help Apple to build their library.

As the Wired article states, there are alot of albums rotting in warehouses that have never made it to digital form and it's time to make them available.

#6 astrokat on 12 May 2004 - 18:07

Most of the albums i am talking about are not even on amazon.

#7 macster on 12 May 2004 - 18:32

Truth
There are some really old songs from back when i was still a child that i really liked but cannot find anymore so sometimes i have to use the "not so legal" way.

Not that i use p2p a lot

just some songs i really cant find and pls dont flame me

(2 replies) #8 kairon on 12 May 2004 - 19:27

Does iTMS still not carry Linkin Park? How lame is that to not carry such a big band?

#8.1 kether2012 on 12 May 2004 - 20:09

or the beatles, or radiohead or the red hot chillis (i think). it's the record companies and bands fault though.

#8.2 dp123 on 12 May 2004 - 21:15

How lame is it to like Linkin Park?

#9 WS togermano on 13 May 2004 - 00:09

And they still dont' have madonna

#10 Huezo on 13 May 2004 - 00:22

They still dont have Rammstein. I've requested it several times and they still dont have it.

#11 Galley on 13 May 2004 - 15:28

There is tons of music from the mid and late 80s that I want, but don't necessarily need the whole CD.

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