MP3s don't travel well in music's new world

So much for buying "import" MP3s.

While watching BBC America recently, I discovered a Scottish singer named Sharleen Spiteri, formerly of the rock group Texas. I liked the cool-'60s sound of her single "All the Times I Cried," so I thought I'd check out her album online. I bopped over to the Amazon MP3 store -- which I'm loving after going virtual with my vast music collection -- but found that her album wasn't listed. It was available in Amazon's CD store, but only as an import disc selling for $22.

OK, so Spiteri hasn't hit stateside. "Not a problem," I thought. "I'll head over to the recently launched Amazon UK MP3 store." Sure enough, there was her album, "Melody," in all of its MP3 glory. After sampling the songs, I went through the motions to download them, essentially doing the 21st-century equivalent of buying the import CD. In fact, I already had an Amazon UK account from having ordered such discs in the past.

But when I went to check out, I was told I couldn't do it. The reason: territorial restrictions. Amazon explains on its site, "As required by our Digital Content providers, Digital Content will, unless otherwise designated, be available only to customers located in the United Kingdom."

To this music fan, that doesn't make any sense. The album is not available in the United States. So if I want it, I can order the import CD. But I can't legally download the MP3 version?

Skye Rossi, who oversees new media for the Minneapolis-based hip-hop label Rhymesayers, started laughing before I had even finished recounting my saga to him.

"There's this convergence of the old way of doing things in the music industry and the new way of doing things," he tried to explain after realizing how my story was going to end. My experience is the result of that clash, he said.

Also, Thompson pegged the issue as the price to pay for the fact that Amazon's files can be freely copied, unlike iTunes (at the time; iTunes is in the process of changing that). But a check shows that Spiteri's album is not available through iTunes, either. "Melody" simply was not released in the United States.

Bands and labels have distribution deals around the world based on the territory, Rossi said. Rhymesayers strikes deals abroad, including with Amazon's MP3 stores in the United States and United Kingdom, but it tends to match its digital distribution with the physical product so that such problems don't exist, he said.

For example, Rhymesayers artist Atmosphere's "Seven Travels" is available in the Amazon UK store on CD as well as in MP3 versions. So British fans of the Minneapolis group can buy the album in any form they want. The reverse isn't true for Spiteri because her label, Universal, apparently didn't strike any kind of U.S. distribution deal for her album.

So why can I still order Spiteri's CD as an import?

"Well, that's where it gets tricky," Rossi said. "And people in the industry are still trying to catch up to it."

"We have no control over that," he said. But labels do exercise stricter controls over digital content.

I guess I'll just buy a used copy of Spiteri's CD for about the price I would have paid for a download and rip it myself. That's perfectly legal, but, ironically, she and her record company won't get any money as a result of that transaction.

As Thompson concluded in his column, "If the record companies continue to push their old-world business practices, insisting on territorial limits and other restrictions, then even Amazon will find it impossible to save the music industry from the implosion which lies ahead."

Rossi agreed that labels need to rethink their approach to digital downloads sold through online retailers such as iTunes and Amazon. He pointed out that even he can't check the offerings of his label on iTunes' UK site because of territorial restrictions.

"At this point, I think there are still a lot of people in the industry who aren't 100 percent sold on digital," he said.