Access to foreign music lists

Question

Itunes has more music than what they show you. There are those of us who like foreign music, like myself. I like some japanese rock. don't knock it till you tried it, search for Miyavi, and preview his music. he owns the guitar.
Anyway, since I know some apple high-ups come here, I have a suggestion.
Bigger music selection, bigger audience.
bigger audience, more customers.
More customers, more profit on your end.
Give us access to all of the music, and you'll get more profit. Try it for a week, make sure you announce it. watch the numbers.
I know there would be tons of working out royalties and such. but realize this: people want entertainment. English or not, give it to them.
Many foreign bands have alot of influence here in the US.
Try it. I know you'll have at least 1 customer.
and I'd tell all my friends.
they'd tell theirs.
and so on, and so on. so, take down the country limit block, and make itunes a GLOBAL store.
Discussion: Should itunes have a global store and just language selection, or keep all of the stores seperated?
dell custom   Windows XP Pro   I'm a technician.

Answer 1

Apple cannot have a global store. This has been covered here many times already, but once again: Apple has no choice in the matter. It's due to restrictions placed on Apple by the record companies and other rights holders. The entities that hold the rights to any given track are almost always completely different from country to country, so providing a given track in any given country requires individual negotiations for any download store. In addition, each entity insists that tracks be sold only within that given country so that they all get their own piece of the pie. If you purchase a track from another country's iTunes Store, your local record company won't get their share of the payment and that's something they're generally not at all willing to forgo. These entities don't like cross-border sales of CDs either, but there's nothing they can do to stop such sales. They can, though, and do stop cross-border download sales, since if the download stores refuse, the rights holders won't license the tracks to that store.
Added to that, often a regional artist has no representation in other countries, so there's no one from whom Apple can license the track for sale in another country. Or if there is representation, that entity may not be willing to license the track(s) to Apple.
So unless and until the record companies, et. al, all get together and agree to allow download stores to sell cross-border, there's very little that Apple or any other download store can do.