Ayu Removed from itunes USA store!!
 

So I noticed last night, and still today, that ALL the ayu music was removed from the itunes USA store!! =( does anyone know why? Is it just my itunes store? Someone check it out on theirs and tell me if it's gone! :thud

It's not just Ayu - a fairly large amount of the major-label jpop stuff has been removed.

ick what happened ?! something major must have happened & that goes for the other jpop artistes too O_O

Maybe their contract was up and they didn't renew it because it wasn't selling?

yeah but, didn't they just put rule/sparkle up on itunes for ayu?

Omg, that would be terrible :(

You can put new stuff out while your contract is still good. But when it's up, it's up.

Well, I don't see how it could sell good. I haven't ever heard anyone in here talk about they bought it on iTunes, everyone is using japanese stores (CDJ/YA/HMV)

At my last visit on my itunes store, GUILTY and Rule/Sparkle were available!
As Utada Hikaru and BoA for some exemple!

probably jpop is being a big competition for the american pop music and that's the situation :D :D :D

^lol, we wish xDD

wierd!!! i hope its just some kind of error....and it will all be back soon:p

Ayu was romeved from iTunes Spain too... so I think she was removed for all Europe iTunes stores :S

^Yeah! I entered to the spanish iTunes Store this morning and saw that Ayu was removed! I hope that it becomes available again... -__- Now that Dragonball evolution is going to be released here, it doesn't make sense that they remove Rule/Sparkle, right?

I totally agree with you...:yes

It's free to get iTunes, right? I'll check the Danish iTunes when I get home. I know GUILTY is/has been avaiable there (One of the 26 countries of this is a place where her fan number is that small? lol)

They're just upgrading everything to iTunes plus!!
Relax everyone!

The thing I'll do is just to download the musics from the internet and upload 'em to my iPod...= =...

I hope so, but I'll believe it when I see it. For some reason it's mainly the JPop that disappeared...like...all of it.........

OMG WTF?!?!?!?!?!? wats goin on!!! mebe theyre preparing to offer it in a more mainstream market?

Maybe there's just a lapse of contract and they'll all be up again soon.

It's probably the same for Aus iTunes but I'll check it when I next use my laptop :)

I bought Rule/Sparkle on iTunes and some of BoA's new album, maybe I'm one of very few!

i wonder why they removed everything

That's extremely odd. I'm surprised at Rule/Sparkle being gone as Dragonball premiers in North America in just a few days! What if someone wants to listen to Ayu!!

i hope it's as someone stated and they're just upgrading iTunes, so all of J-music will be back up soon

ya almost all Jpop is removed Ayu, BoA ect

if it's off the US store, it'll be off all the other itunes (minus Japan?) considering that's were teh biggest "western" market would be, no?

it's also not on the NZ itunes now either v-v not that I shop on itunes either lol XD

shes gone here in Australia also!!


OMG :(

but why?

I would have thought that it would be a simple case of upgrading iTunes internal links to post files without DRM...if they don't come back soon it might pay to email them about it :D

I found out that same thing just yesterday!!! :( :( :(

This is terrible :(

"As of April 7th, all the songs sold in the iTunes Store have no Digital Rights Management (DRM) meaning they can be copied without restrictions. Also, Apple has agreed to tiered pricing. Some newer, popular songs have increased in price to $1.69 USD and some backlist songs have been reduced to $. 69 USD, some have remained at .99. If Apple was unable to secure the rights to sell a song without DRM, they removed it from sale."

I just copied and paste that from some guy in the Apple forums. It may be true. The tiered pricing seems true too, though instead of $1.69, I'm seeing $1.29.

Oh, I can totally see Avex agreeing to that :rolleyes

^Haha so true. But still that is bad that everything is removed. :(

Well frankly...this blows. *sigh*

I saw about 2 weeks ago Rule/Sparkle too

She was removed from the Norwegian one too. Probably because Apple is trying to make iTunes DRM free.

^I'm sure that's all it is.
Please, don't worry everyone.

That's terrible! I was putting off buying some stuff there too T_T I guess I'll have to buy the rest at iTunes Japan

So...they might put it back up?

Well, that seems stupid.

that's bad news!

I hope they do put it back up, or else I know where I won't be buying any more J-pop from. Forget that. I can use ebay, I can save my pennies. Heck, I can just not use their ridiculous service anyway. Amazon is just a click away, after all.

Of course, if Avex decides they don't want to release stuff with no DRM in so many markets (and affecting so many artists), I have to wonder what that will do to their sales. Can they really think that ignoring a global audience that evidently buys their stuff is a good idea?

yeah I checked itunes last night and saw ayu's stuff wasn't there anymore. I hope it's just an upgrade thing...

Though, I only use the itunes store on my ipod touch, all the charts are gone apart from the "itunes" top 10. So I reckon they are just upgrading or something with it.

kind of saw that coming lol

that's so freakin' nightmare if they're removed permanently!

....but, i'm not really care though since i don't buy from iTunes, :D

I'm sure it's just being taken down for a bit....

yes, they are removed.
avex mostly likely did not agree to DRM free sales, and thus they won't be sold at all

however, theres nothing saying that they wont agree to it later on.
The Office tv show was unavailable on iTunes for most of the 4th season due to NBC and Apple disagreements but its been resolved now, so maybe in the future avex and Apple will sort something out.

It's not just Jpop that has disappeared from iTunes. Now that iTunes Plus is the standard Apple is pulling any music that is lower quality. Avex and other Japanese labels will have to provide have to provide higher quality copies of their music before it will show up again on iTunes.

I'm not so sure avex music is on the iTunes US priority list though. And avex is pretty stingy...

I'm not sure what you mean. The stuff I previously downloaded from iTunes that's now unavailable (such as Ayu) is the same quality as anything else in the iTunes store, as far as bitrate and such. The DRM-free issue seems a more likely culprit.

they have artist like kana (well moon kana), Gackt, BoA, and one dragon ash song(by the way idk that they did a song for tokyo drift)

and for ayu they dont even have The Orb remixes thakfully i bought SURREAL and kanariya singles before this happened

maybe avex didnt renew their contract with itunes or smthin. hope it comes back =/

omg why would they take ayu off! baka i-tunes lol! I'll still use it for songs but why D: I think ayu makes lots of sales for them in terms of jpop sales.

they have her in the Japan iTunes

exactly.
so it will be a while before ayu comes back onto US iTunes, if ever.

I guess some user already noticed it in chat room, isn't it?