World of Apple

Bloomberg is reporting that Warner Brothers studios, Disney, Fox, Lions Gate and Paramount are all involved in Apple’s iTunes rental deal, the details of which are widely expected to arrive at next weeks keynote address at Macworld on January 15th.

Bloomberg states that new and old releases will be available to rent for $3.99 for 24 hours.

Follow our iTunes Rentals tag for up to date rumours on iTunes Store rentals

Apple has announced today that within six months it will lower prices on its UK iTunes Store to match already standardised pricing on iTunes across Europe in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain.

Apple currently must pay some record labels more to distribute their music in the UK than it pays them to distribute the same music elsewhere in Europe. Apple will reconsider its continuing relationship in the UK with any record label that does not lower its wholesale prices in the UK to the pan-European level within six months.

“This is an important step towards a pan-European marketplace for music,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We hope every major record label will take a pan-European view of pricing.”

TUAW reports that one tipster has received the Family Guy DVD ‘Blue Harvest’ a week ahead of the January 15th release, the tipster has provided several screenshots of a Digital Copy file suitable for playing on iPods that is included on the DVD.

Fox Digital Copy file

When attempting to play the “Fox Digital Copy” file the tipster was prompted to upgrade to iTunes version 7.6 which as of writing is not available to the general public.

AppleInsider reports that iTunes 7.6 will herald the introduction of iTunes Store movie rentals, Apple is expected to offer digital movie downloads from the catalogues of motion picture studios Walt Disney, and Twentieth Century Fox.

Variety is citing studio sources and confirms two other reports from major news outlets that Apple will be announcing iTunes Movie Rentals at next months Macworld San Francisco.

The report states that both Fox and Disney have signed up to the deal to provide movies on iTunes’ new rental service.

Variety also weighs in on the pricing, reporting that rentals will cost between $2-5 for a 24 hour period.

The New York Times has confirmed earlier rumours that Apple will be launching an iTunes movie rental service at Macworld Expo, San Francisco. According to the papers sources more than one studio will be involved in the deal.

Apple has been trying to interest a number of Hollywood studios in an iTunes rental service, and several people familiar with the negotiations said that more than one studio would appear onstage at the company’s MacWorld exhibition here beginning Jan. 14 to endorse a new Apple movie rental service.

Over the last few days The Financial Times reported that 20th Century Fox would be the first studio to join Apple’s iTunes Rental service.

True to yesterdays rumours, Apple has begun selling TV shows on the iTunes Store in Canada.

Shows will be available for $1.99.

ITunes customers can choose from Canadian-produced favorites such as the top-rated, award-winning “Corner Gas” from CTV, smash hit comedy “Little Mosque on the Prairie” from CBC, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning “South Park” from Comedy Central and the NHL Games of the Year.

“We’re thrilled to bring television programming to the iTunes Store in Canada in time for the holiday season,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We’re off to a great start with hit shows from CBC, CTV, Comedy Central and MTV Networks, along with the best of classic and current NHL action.”

Television shows purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store can be viewed on a PC or Mac, iPod nano with video, fifth generation iPod, iPod classic or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. Television programming on the iTunes Store in Canada includes:

• CBC’s comedy programs “Little Mosque on the Prairie” and “The Rick Mercer Report,” reality programming “No Opportunity Wasted” and “Dragon’s Den;” • CTV’s smash hit comedy “Corner Gas,” dramas “Instant Star,” “Degrassi: The Next Generation” and “Robson Arms;” • Comedy Central’s “Drawn Together,” “The Sarah Silverman Program” and Emmy and Peabody Award-winning “South Park;” • MTV Networks programs “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “The Hills;” and • NHL Games of the Year, including top NHL games in their entirety for the 2007-2008 season, as well as Stanley Cup Classics, a five-game bundle of great Stanley Cup Final games.

Ars Technica reports that iTunes users in Canada could be greeted with the arrival of TV Shows to the store in the coming days.

The company plans to begin adding shows quietly to the store as early as tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon or evening, with an official launch expected for Wednesday if things go smoothly, our sources tell us. reports Ars Technica.

The report is keen to mention that it could be up to two weeks before we see the arrival as Apple has a habit of moving dates around.

Shows are expected from CBC, CTV and several US networks at first.

With the release of iTunes 7.5 a while back one user noticed some interesting strings in the new iTunes 7.5 binary. The strings of code point towards the future existence of some kind of rental facility on the iTunes Store.

In September one user discovered a temporary glitch in Apple’s reporting system.

The following strings were found within iTunes 7.5:

rental-content

supportsRentals

Now it seems that an astute iPhone hacker has come across similar strings in the latest iPhone update. The strings of code are contained within the ‘lockdownd’ file which basically authorises anything coming in or out of the phone as well as being responsible for all communication between iPhone and the computer.

A string search through the lockdownd executable in /usr/libexec produced the following hits when searched for “rental”:

pumpkin:~ pumpkin$ strings /usr/local/share/iphone-filesystem/usr/libexec/lockdownd | grep -i rental
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not retrieve FairPlayID
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not initialize FairPlay context
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not verify the rental bag response: %d
load_rental_bag_request: Could not retrieve FairPlayID
load_rental_bag_request: Could not initialize FairPlay context
load_rental_bag_request: Could not generate rental bag request
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create mutable dictionary
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFData from request message
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFArray
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFNumber from indice
RentalBagResponse
RentalBagRequest
pumpkin:~ pumpkin$

One of the worlds leading rock bands, Led Zeppelin have had their entire catalogue published on the iTunes Store. Apple is yet to release a press statement regarding this breakthrough release on iTunes but the following blurb is available on the Led Zeppelin iTunes page.

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin. A name that’s probably been scrawled onto notebooks, carved into park benches, and spray-painted on walls more than any other. The name came from Who drummer Keith Moon’s idea that the group would sink like a lead balloon. Indeed they would create something heavy, but it wouldn’t sink - it would set the model for the ultimate rock band in the years to follow.

Guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist John Paul Jones, and singer Robert Plant, and drummer John Bonham united to become the most deified rock band of the ’70s, embodying excess, reinventing FM radio, and writing music that made you want to move your feet, shake your fists, bang your head, and basically act like a rock ‘n’ roll lunatic.

Led Zeppelin is now available for download on iTunes. “The Complete Led Zeppelin,” the ultimate digital box set of 165 remastered tracks from the group’s 13 legendary albums, is now available for download for US$99.99 (£59.99). Other individual Led Zeppelin albums are available at prices starting at $7.92 (£6.32).

The Washington Post has published a three-page report on Thursday discussing Apple’s current problems negotiating between NBC Universal and Warner Music.

In August NBC Universal announced that it did not intend to renew its iTunes contract, this subsequently led to Apple showing NBC up and announcing that it would not carry NBC’s schedule of fall TV shows.

Today the Washington Post writes that Apple and NBC have given up negotiations, NBC also confirmed to the publication that it had sent a letter to Apple on October 9th asserting that they were in breach of contract but no legal action would follow.

It is expected that when NBC’s contract ends on December 1st the entire catalogue will be removed. This includes shows from Sci Fi, USA and Bravo cable channels.

Meanwhile the Warner Music Group is considering switching to a month-to-month iTunes contract, of which the annual expires at the end of this year.

The move follows that of the Universal Music Group who told Apple earlier in the year that it would not renew its exclusive yearly contract and would instead go month-to-month, leaving it free to deal with alternative distribution sources.