Update: ElectricPig is reporting on 10/13 that an Apple spokesperson said the LP format will be opened up for all, indies and majors alike.

There's word from an indie record-label that iTunes LPs are not for the indies. Introduced at Apple's "It's Only Rock and Roll" event in September, the iTunes LP format adds "bigger than a matchbook" album art, song lyrics, video clips, and other extra content to albums sold through the iTunes store.

Brian McKinney of Chicago-based label Chocolate Lab Records saw some promise in the new format and started looking into the idea of producing for iTunes LPs himself. But the truly small labels may have a hard time getting in. McKinney spoke to the digital distribution manager at his label's distributor, who reportedly told him that Apple charges a $10,000 production fee for iTunes LPs. $10,000 may be less than the heads of Warner Music Group, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and EMI spend on breakfast, but could be cost prohibitive for the little label that could (if it had $10,000 handy for each of its acts).

It's not just the cost that prohibits the little labels. According to McKinney, it's also Apple. McKinney says his dude in distribution was told "that LPs aren't being offered to indies and that there are only about 12 LPs being offered right now."

"Foul, foul, filth and foul," cries Cult of Mac's Pete Mortensen. Like a financial analyst moving a stock from "buy" to "sell," Mortensen says iTunes LP has gone from "the first digital album good enough to criticize," to "the first major content misstep in the history of the iTunes Store." Assuming that Chocolate Lab's distributor info is on the up-and-up, Mortensen thinks iTunes LP is "less a new format for music than it is a new form of paid advertising on the iTunes store."

So, the friend of a friend told me that the Beatles is finally going to be on iTunes tomorrow.

Not so fast, EMI immediately countered.

In the latest chapter of a saga filled with more "will they, or won't they?" than a shoujo manga, Engadget picked up a 9to5Mac report today stating that Yoko Ono is talking about an iTunes arrival for the Beatles on an already Fab Four-packed 9/9/09. We've already speculated about it once, but Yoko's words caused the Twitter feeds to immediately jump alive with fevered speculation that maybe, just maybe, tomorrow's finally the day.

I'm with Steve Sande. Seeing Paul, Ringo, Julian Lennon and Dhani Harrison (who helped mastermind The Beatles: Rock Band -- my reservation was made for the game six months ago) on stage together to announce the Beatles on iTunes would be fantastic. However, I'd rather see the release be done right than thrown together at the last minute. The optimistic side of me is sure that it won't be long before the Beatles and iTunes will be goin' steady for good.

Remember when we said the four largest record companies were working together with Apple to add enhanced liner notes and extra media to full album purchases through the iTunes Store? Well, apparently Apple wasn't in on that cooperation. The Guardian is reporting that the four companies' plans for enhanced full albums were rebuffed by Apple, and they are planning to release their own format in competition with the one to be released in the iTunes Store.

The new file format, called CMX, was created by EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner. It will function quite a bit like a DVD, with a launch page allowing for navigation to the related artwork and video portions of the album. An unnamed label representative is quoted saying that the format was initially presented to an uninterested Apple; now, Apple is releasing a competing format under the code name Cocktail.

The format's tentative launch date is set for November, will be for a small number of titles, and only available in smaller music stores and non-Apple players. It is unclear how Cocktail and CMX will be different, if at all, save for the exclusivity of platforms. Apple is largely said to be following up on the format as a precautionary measure, in case it proves to be immensely popular; as they've said repeatedly, their interest still lies with supporting the more lucrative hardware, rather than trying to profit from full album sales. Still, Apple is stepping up to the format battle, and while not on the scale of Betamax vs. VHS or HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray, this promises to be a pretty decent fight.

[via Electronista]

Digital music purchases have been dominating the market for some time now as physical CD purchases continue to fall. For Apple, a significant lead over the rest of the music proprietor world is not enough: according to the Financial Times, the company is now working together with the four largest record labels in the business to add new features to accompany digital music purchases through its iTunes Store in hopes of stimulating full album purchases.

[The FT also reports, without hedging, that Apple's "media pad" tablet device will ship in time for the holiday shopping season. According to the paper, the long-rumored iPad is intended as a full-featured portable computer and video & music player, like an oversized iPod touch, including wireless data connectivity but no built-in phone functions.]

Apple has formed an alliance with EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music to bundle whole albums with perks like interactive booklets, digital sleeve notes, and video clips. By doing so, Apple hopes to increase sales of the albums over single track purchases, a sales model that has been immensely popular in the advent of digital music.

The project, codenamed "Cocktail," is intended to recreate the former experience of album-purchasing, where you could browse the liner notes, follow lyrics, and look at the album artwork as the music played. Executives have said that users will even be able to play music straight from the proposed interactive booklets without having to use iTunes. Of course, the main motivation for increasing album sales is to increase profits, as albums have a higher margin than individual songs.

This change is one that should have taken place a long time ago- having to search for lyrics on shady, ad-ridden websites should already be a fading, shudder-inducing memory (though liner notes have been available on some albums, a change across the board has yet to take place). As items like liner notes and photos are possibly the last benefit that physical CDs can offer over digital purchases, this may turn out to be a very serious blow to the CD market. The iTunes Store album add-ons are set to roll out in September.

I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors... but 'groundbreaking electro legends' isn't the first phrase I'd use to describe Depeche Mode. (In case you were wondering, that first phrase would be 'New Wave, eminently danceable Brit synth veterans,' but right there you have ample reason why I write about computers and not bands.)

In any case, Dave Gahan, Martin L. Gore & co. will be the first band to offer an iTunes Pass. Customers can pay $19 to pre-order the band's next album, Sounds of the Universe, and get 'Wrong' (the first single) and a dub remix immediately. Over the next 3+ months, they'll automatically get the new album along with additional tracks and video exclusives. From the EMI release:

"The relationship between Depeche Mode and their fans has always been our top priority," said the band's manager, Jonathan Kessler. "We are thrilled to be the first to participate with Apple in giving fans the kind of deep musical experience they expect from Depeche Mode."

Truth is, I don't see much difference between the iTunes Pass approach and a "special edition" iTunes expanded album with videos + singles added on, except that this has the same effect as a television show's Season Pass of frontloading the revenue and dribbling the content out over several weeks. Granted, for DM fans this is a nice way of jumping into the new stuff and getting extra goodies, but it's not a dramatically different way of delivering music. If you want to find out more about iTunes Pass provisions (yes, all the music will be DRM-free iTunes Plus tracks), check out the details page within iTunes.

[via Macrumors]

Talks between Apple, Inc., Apple Corps, and EMI to bring the Beatles catalogue to the iTunes Store have "stalled," according to a statement by Paul McCartney to the Associated Press.

McCartney said, "The last word I got back was it's stalled at the whole moment, the whole process." He told the BBC that "heavy negotiations" were in progress with EMI, who said they were "working hard to secure agreement with Apple Corps."

My ill-informed, Captain Obvious guess? Someone's holding out for more money. The AP oddly suggested that the holdup is related to a trademark dispute between Apple Corps and Apple, Inc. which was settled in court last year.

McCartney continued, "I really hope it will happen because I think it should."

[Via Cult of Mac.]

YouTube has added links from promotional and music videos to the iTunes store and AmazonMP3, where you can buy the song featured. The links appear on its website, beneath videos like this one.

Currently, EMI appears to be the only major music label participating in the deal. Electronic Arts has links related to its Spore game to Amazon.com, where you can purchase a copy.

Google (whose CEO, Eric Schmidt, is on Apple's board of directors) has been looking for ways to earn money from YouTube, its $1.6 billion purchase from 2006. YouTube probably already earns some revenue from Apple via a partnership that includes a YouTube player on the iPhone and Apple TV, but the financial details are unknown.

[Via Macworld.]

Macworld UK reports that EMI is seeing an uptick in purchases from iTunes since iTunes Plus was introduced. For instance, sales of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon [iTunes Link] have increased 350% (we all know hippies don't like DRM. I kid, I kid).

The real question is whether the uptick in purchases can be attributed to the lack of DRM or the higher bit rate encoding? Either way, this is good news for those of us who welcome a world without DRM.

Wow. After all that fuss, it turns out that I don't own a single upgradable EMI track. My cost for bringing my library out of the dark ages and into the brave new DRM-free world? Nothing. At least that's nothing until I go out and buy a $1.29 track later this morning so I can play with the data file and see whether it will play back on my, you know, Zune. Curiously enough I do own EMI plus-worthy tracks (for example, David Bowie's "Life on Mars") but I have not been offered an option to upgrade them.

So here's the challenge: Who of you out there in reader land has the biggest collection of upgradable tracks and how much is iTunes asking you to fork over to pay for those upgrades? Let us know in the comments. The winner gets bragging rights ands we will issue him or her a virtual TUAW huzzah (try saying that three times fast.)

If you're stuck at work and can't get away to take a peek at the new iTunes 7.2 update, we've put together this handy gallery of screen shots showing you the new 7.2 features. In iTunes 7.2, you'll find a new link to iTunes Plus in the iTunes Quick Links. Select it and iTunes will prompt you to update preferences (whether to use iTunes plus for your albums whenever possible) and your licensing agreement--that's another agreement on top of the one you had to agree to just to install the program.

TUAW's 7.2 gallery is a work in progress. Expect updates throughout the day as the new features come on line.

At TUAW we've been following the DRM-free EMI track deal for some time. We're delighted to announce that these tracks will finally available for sale over at the iTunes Store later today (Apple announced they are available, but not in my copy of iTunes at the moment).

DRM-free tracks will cost you $1.29 each rather than the normal $0.99 per track you normally pay. The extra money buys you more audio quality than the standard DRM'ed tracks (256 kbps AAC versus 128 kbs AAC). Expect larger data downloads as your audio files expand to accommodate those extra bits.

iTunes Plus requires iTunes 7.2.

Another hurdle on the way to an eventual Beatles-on-iTunes debut has been cleared. Today, ContactMusic reported that Apple Corps has settled with EMI over unpaid royalties. Apparently, this ongoing dispute has been one of the issues that has blocked online digital distribution of Beatles tracks. This settlement may allow EMI to distribute Beatles songs online in the near future. If so, you may soon see the Beatles showing up in iTunes. It's been a long and winding road and we're still not near the end.

Thanks Jeff Kirk & everyone who sent this in.

You might have read Dave's writeup of Mac OS X Hint's terminal tip for locating EMI songs using mdifind. I tried it out myself but I just couldn't get it to work. So I thought I'd give you a far easier way to accomplish the same thing.

In Finder, select File -> Find (Command-F). Select "Other..." from the search attribute pop-up and when the "Select a search attribute" dialog opens, choose Copyright ("Copyright information about this item") from the list. Search for Copyright Contains EMI and let Spotlight do all the work for you.

Last week we asked if you will upgrade the EMI tracks you currently own to the new DRM-free versions when they become available in iTunes next month. Just over 2,500 of you said you would, so now the question becomes: How do I easily find my EMI music?

MacOSXHints has the answer. Just launch Terminal and enter the following:

"mdfind -onlyin ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music
"kMDItemCopyright == '*Emi*' kMDItemCodecs == '*protected*' "

Note that this trick assumes your music lives in the default location. You can output the result to a handy text file by appending > ~/Desktop/myEMI.txt to the end of the command above. Cool!

Now that Apple has penned a deal to open up EMI songs, will Microsoft be next? The Times Online writes that Microsoft has hinted that it may follow the Apple model and sell EMI songs at Zune Marketplace without DRM. No deals are signed or announced yet, but an EMI spokesman said that negotiations with non-Apple vendors are ongoing.

As I've posted before, I think that the Apple/EMI deal is the first chink in the ship that will sink DRM use. Just like all those late and unlamented software copy protection schemes of the 1980's, DRM may soon be a historical footnote. Only time will tell, but I suspect that the iTunes DRM-free option will encourage a new wave of purchasers that have previously spurned the store due to DRM concerns.