Record Store Day celebrates vinyl's record comeback

Record Store Day features more than 1,500 indie shops from New York to London for music lovers - New York Daily News Article Collections NYDN Home?Collections?Lady Gaga RELATED KEYWORDS:Lady Gaga|Regina SpektorRecord Store Day features more than 1,500 indie shops from New York to London for music loversBY NICOLE LYN PESCEDAILY NEWS FEATURE REPORTERWednesday, April 13, 2011

Record Store Day is music to a vinyl junkie's ears.

More than 1,500 indie shops from the lower East Side to London are celebrating nostalgia on Saturday, hawking limited-edition album releases and hosting live performances to support local record stores.

"It's bigger than Christmas for us," says co-founder Michael Kurtz. "When we open up in the morning, most stores have people camped outside and a lot of them don't even have turntables! But they will buy these releases because they are collectible pieces of art.

"Even if they don't love the record store, they love the idea of the record store," he adds.

Just four years ago, vinyl was getting some pretty bad press. "Tower Records closed and Virgin was closing and it was just all negative," says Kurtz. He and fellow collectors kicked off Record Store Day (RSD) in 2008 with a modest 250 stores offering 10 special-edition albums from artists like Metallica.

This year, it expands to 1,500 shops across the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Japan, with more than 600 artists including Ozzy Osbourne, Lady Gaga, The Decemberists, Bob Dylan and the Foo Fighters putting out limited LPs, EPs and singles.

Peter Enzinna (glasses) and Rachel Atcheson browse in Other Music in the… (Noonan for News)

The digital revolution isn't threatening to close RSD's shop. Even as the iPod generation sends the music industry into a slump (overall album sales dropped 13% in 2010), the Nielsen Company and Billboard report vinyl has seen a 14% surge since 2009.

In fact, the only danger Record Store Day really faces is going mainstream. Lincoln Center is getting in on the act this weekend, screening the Record Store Day documentary "Sound It Out" and singer Regina Spektor's film "Live in London."

John Leguizamo performs at Vintage Vinyl off Route 1 in Fords, N.J. and Mayor Bloomberg dubbed Saturday an official citywide event.

Has the ultimate indie fest sold out?

"We laugh about that quite a bit, but we've decided we are not going to be arbitrators of taste and what's commercial or not," says Kurtz.

"But we are going to stick to our guns and not let any corporations be involved and keep it true to what we're doing. We serve the people who really love music and want to collect stuff."

The shops in turn are treating customers to deejay sets, body-painting and more. For a full list of participating stores, visit RecordStoreDay.com/Venues. Here are some local highlights:

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iTunes shocker! Apple announces App Store subscriptions

Apple Launches Subscriptions on the App Store

CUPERTINO, California-February 15, 2011-Apple® today announced a new subscription service available to all publishers of content-based apps on the App Store?, including magazines, newspapers, video, music, etc. This is the same innovative digital subscription billing service that Apple recently launched with News Corp.'s "The Daily" app.

Subscriptions purchased from within the App Store will be sold using the same App Store billing system that has been used to buy billions of apps and In-App Purchases. Publishers set the price and length of subscription (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly). Then with one-click, customers pick the length of subscription and are automatically charged based on their chosen length of commitment (weekly, monthly, etc.). Customers can review and manage all of their subscriptions from their personal account page, including canceling the automatic renewal of a subscription. Apple processes all payments, keeping the same 30 percent share that it does today for other In-App Purchases.

"Our philosophy is simple-when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app. We believe that this innovative subscription service will provide publishers with a brand new opportunity to expand digital access to their content onto the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone, delighting both new and existing subscribers."

Publishers who use Apple's subscription service in their app can also leverage other methods for acquiring digital subscribers outside of the app. For example, publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple. Publishers must provide their own authentication process inside the app for subscribers that have signed up outside of the app. However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

Protecting customer privacy is a key feature of all App Store transactions. Customers purchasing a subscription through the App Store will be given the option of providing the publisher with their name, email address and zip code when they subscribe. The use of such information will be governed by the publisher's privacy policy rather than Apple's. Publishers may seek additional information from App Store customers provided those customers are given a clear choice, and are informed that any additional information will be handled under the publisher's privacy policy rather than Apple's.

The revolutionary App Store offers more than 350,000 apps to consumers in 90 countries, with more than 60,000 native iPad™ apps. Customers of the more than 160 million iOS devices around the world can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Press Contacts:
Trudy Muller
Apple
tmuller@apple.com
(408) 862-7426
Tom Neumayr
Apple
tneumayr@apple.com
(408) 974-1972
NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple's PR website, or call Apple's Media Helpline at (408) 974-2042.

Verizon Offering Discounted iPhone Plans to Apple Retail Store Employees

ifoAppleStore reports that Verizon is offering excellent deals on service plans for Apple's retail store employees, encouraging them to switch over to the carrier's services for their wireless needs. According to tipsters, employees can pay the non-subsidized price of $649.99 for a 16 Gb iPhone 4, for example, and then pay just $25 a month for 1,500 monthly minutes, along with unlimited texts and data. A consumer plan with unlimited talk time, data and texts costs $119.94. A similar plan on the AT&T network would cost $114.99.

A second option allows retail store employees to purchase the Verizon iPhone at regular subsidized prices and pay full service plan fees for ten months, after which time the service plan would drop to $25 per month for the remaining 14 months of the contract.

Employees taking advantage of the deals would reportedly not be eligible for future iPhone upgrade discounts as long as they remain Apple employees.

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