Album notes and song lyrics and librettos?

[quote]Its not that simple. Information like that is often times controlled with a different set of rights and royalties. That would involve completely separate negotiations. [/quote]Although a translation of a Giacosa libretto (for example) might be copyrighted, I still think you're making a dubious claim. When Deutsche Grammophon prints a translation of a libretto in the booklet that comes with the recording, I assume they've made an arrangement with the translator. If Apple is buying the right to sell a that opera recording via download, they're making an arrangement too, with Deutsche Grammophon as the middleman. A record company doesn't have to renegotiate with the author of a translation (or of a libretto in the case of a work in copyright, such as Hans Werner Henze's and Edward Bond's "We Come to the River") every time they distribute through a new retailer. If Apple is getting the rights cheaper by eschewing the libretto, they need to cut it out and supply the libretto. It wouldn't shave that much off their profits, it wouldn't raise the cost to the purchaser that much, and it would be a huge selling point. I repeat: without an English translation of the libretto, I AM NOT GOING TO BE BUYING A RECORDING OF HANDEL'S "RINALDO" VIA ITUNES! Not at ALL. Right now Apple is getting a hundred percent of nothing as far as my opera purchases are concerned. I buy the CD's from the record company directly. Any time Apple wants its share of that revenue, it can pony up my libretto.

No, you don't generally get those things from the iTunes Store. Some albums come with "digital booklets" but they seem to be new, popular albums.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "at the prices the iTunes Store charges" as albums on iTunes are generally less than buying a new CD in a store. Of course, one can always buy used. I find Amazon has great deals on used CDs.

It's a great annoyance. Why buy an opera recording on Itunes? I like to read along with the libretto while I listen. Now if there were a translation running across the screen, synched up with the music, that would be fantastic. Why can't Apple do that? Even some songs in English are hard to understand.

ducdebrabant wrote:
It's a great annoyance. Why buy an opera recording on Itunes? I like to read along with the libretto while I listen. Now if there were a translation running across the screen, synched up with the music, that would be fantastic. Why can't Apple do that? Even some songs in English are hard to understand.

Its not that simple. Information like that is often times controlled with a different set of rights and royalties. That would involve completely separate negotiations.

ducdebrabant wrote:
A record company doesn't have to renegotiate with the author of a translation (or of a libretto in the case of a work in copyright, such as Hans Werner Henze's and Edward Bond's "We Come to the River") every time they distribute through a new retailer.

It's not a just different retailer, it's a different format. Sometimes, electronic or digital distribution rights are owned by different parties than the print rights.

At any rate, none of us here have any way of knowing what all the reasons are. Perhaps Deutsche Grammophon has chosen not to provide the libretti as a way of avoiding cutting into their physical CD sales.

Ask here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html

And I repeat:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html