Filed under: iTunes, Music

Within days of the iTunes 9 and iTunes LP announcement, people had already thoroughly hacked apart the iTunes LP format only to discover it was just a clever combination of images, HTML, CSS and Javascript. Because any web developer could create an iTunes LP, it seemed strange that indie labels were left out in the cold, with LPs having a high cost of entry and no distribution of their LPs on the iTunes Store.

We do have a report this morning of Apple announcing that they’ll be opening up the LP format, but a few inventive artists appear to have leapfrogged that step towards glasnost. It was only a matter of time before someone starting offering iTunes LPs in other ways, and iTunesLP.net is that someone. They’re already offering up Disney’s Fantasia in the iTunes LP format, but no music is included.

Installing the LP is as easy and double-clicking the downloaded file, but for the music to play properly it must be correctly tagged and named, and of course you need a legitimate way to get the music in question. Even though the site only offers 1 LP currently, it has plenty of tutorials and directions on how to create and distribute your own.

As long as no copyright laws are being broken, I think creating and distributing these LPs is a great idea. It offers users the chance to create visually stunning LPs for older music that the labels wouldn’t bother with, and it offers indie labels the chance to get iTunes LPs out there, even if they’re not yet available directly in the iTunes Store. With Apple’s new policy towards opening up the LP format, this may be a brief opportunity for the workaround, but it’s nice to see.

Distributing iTunes LPs without iTunes originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Distributing iTunes LPs without iTunes originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple documents iTunes LP and iTunes Extras for developers

Filed under: iTS, iTunes, DeveloperAfter seeing the intent by developers and artists to create iTunes LP and iTunes Extras for their music, Apple has opened up the availability to develop these features to third parties. However, automatic submission for iTunes LP and iTunes Extras is not expected until early 2010; in the meantime, it's still a limited process and uploads must be performed manually. If you're an iTunes contributor and you're looking forward to developing an iTunes LP of your own, Apple has posted several resources for Extras & LP, including a best practices guide, a development guide, asset delivery

iTunes LP now available for Apple TV customers

Filed under: iTS, Multimedia, iTunes, Apple TVA few of us here at TUAW received an email from Apple this morning stating that Apple TV-compatible versions of previous iTunes LP purchases are available for download. You'll remember that LP purchases made before the Apple TV 3.0 release would need a second download to work with the Apple TV. Apple is now offering those downloads. The email from Apple is very straight-forward: "With the latest versions of iTunes (9.0.2) and Apple TV software (3.0), you can now use iTunes LP on your Apple TV. We have updated the iTunes LP that was included

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