More on Apple's iTunes Music Store in Canada, Maybe Sooner Than Later

Yesterday we posted an email to a reader forwarded to us noting that CMRRA is in negotiation with Apple to bring the iTMS to Canada. According to another email forwarded to us by a reader, those negotiations have only just begun but the President of CMRRA, David Basskin, is more optimistic in this email:

Dear Luke:

Thank you for posting a question to the CMRRA web site (http://www.cmrra.ca).

Um ... I'm the President of CMRRA, and I speak for my company. There is no "official line" that differs from what I have to say. We are now in negotiations with Apple for the licensing of their service in Canada, and we look forward to this process being completed in a reasonably short time. Apple will still have to separately license the recordings from the record companies, but I trust that they will have that process under wraps in a similar period. Certainly we're much impressed by IMS, and we hope to add it to the list of other companies we've licensed for Canada - a list that already includes MusicNet, Napster and Puretracks, although only the latter is presently in operation.

Our discussions with Apple only began this week. Prior to this week, we had asked Apple to sit down with us, but they weren't ready to do so. Now they are. We hope to license them soon.

I trust this clairifies your confusion on this subject. Please let us know if you have further questions.

Yours truly,

David Basskin
President
CMRRA Ltd.
Toronto, Canada