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Apple launching European iTunes video soon
Author: Wil HarrisPublished: 31st January 2007
iTunes video in Europe - pointless, given the time difference?
So says the AFP, which quotes Jeannot Krecke, Luxembourg's economic minister, as saying that "Apple is going to extend its electronic retail activities in Luxembourg by launching this coming spring its iTunes video platform for the sale of videos in Europe," allowing European users to get TV shows for purchase and download.
The servers and infrastructure will be set up in Luxembourg, and Apple will be joining Amazon and AOL as big American companies with their Euro infrastructure in the Grand Duchy. Why? Well, Luxembourg has one of the lowest VAT rates in Europe, making it cheaper to set up big operations there.
American and Canadian users have been able to download TV shows since back in 2005, when Apple launched the iPod video - but licensing restrictions prevent that content also being sold across the pond. It is unlikely that we will see the same array of content on the European store, with episodes of Lost, 24 and suchlike significantly delayed compared to the American store, as with TV schedules.
Will you bother loading up on £1-a-show TV content? Let us know over in the forums.
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Comments (7)
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The trouble we have, as you say in the article, is with licencing meaning that we get the shows far later than the americans and £1 per episode is possibly a little too expensive to boot.
If there was an incentive to purchasing these episodes from the iTunes store however, say getting it a week or perhaps earlier than it would arrive on the TV, the service would have the potential to make it an instant hit with the consumer market. The trouble being that the people who are likely to want mobile video content will be the tech savvy, and they (or should I say us?) are more likely to re-encode their own DVD's or perhaps obtain videos from more questionable sources instead.
but i have a feeling the the drm will make these files useless to me as i would like to watch them on my htpc but i download every thing on my main pc.