46 replies to this topic

[Paramorning]

Not sure if this requires a thread, but anyway.

All of Hello Project's songs have been deleted from iTunes UK and Europe. I've contacted UpFrontLink over fb and it would be really great if others could do so too.

Also, are the songs still on iTunes US?

[Samira']

I just checked iTunes US and H!P songs are still there.

[VioletDreamer]

That's very strange. I wonder why? Hopefully they'll get back to you soon with some answers. But yeah, they are still on US iTunes like Samira said, which makes me wonder even more went it's not on iTunes in the UK.

[Paramorning]

Maybe enough people just weren't buying the songs? Idk there are very few HP fans from the UK I think maybe they're trying to force us to buy physical copies.

[°C-ute-Fan!]

its really deleted... oh no -.-

[Lipstick]

Maybe enough people just weren't buying the songs? Idk there are very few HP fans from the UK I think maybe they're trying to force us to buy physical copies.

I don't think that's the case because it shouldn't cost UFP much to keep the songs available for downloading... Or maybe they were paying Apple some kind of fee? Then it would be strange that Itunes US still has the songs up.

[Paramorning]

And it's odd that the songs are still on google play UK. Well... Colourful character is there. Although whoever wrote the description of Momusu clearly knew next to nothing about them... And really? 60's Pop?!

[timekiller001^]

Google Play always had only Colorful Character, I have no idea why.

In Germany all of them are gone from iTunes as well, even on my list of bought items they don't show up anymore.

[Chisa no Mark]

You guys can still buy songs through the US site right?

 

It's a no-brainer that they've been deleted because they weren't selling.

 

I'm not saying you guys weren't buying them, but that there's not enough of you.

 

Which is strange because I think you (Europe combined) have a bigger population and usually better taste as well.

 

But apparently this is one instance where this is you     and this is us     .

 

 

   

 

One thing puzzles me though.   This is not the best way for UFP to win friends and influence people.

[Krusha]

If they weren't selling, they certainly cannot sell anything now with everything gone. So if it's the case that there are large fees to be paid to iTunes in order to have your music on iTunes, I can understand it if they aren't earning anything by having the songs there. It's a case of cutting losses. But if there's no sort of heavy fee, then I don't understand why they removed the songs (it's digital after all). They are decreasing their market potential that way.

[Paramorning]

Yeah we can't buy from the American store because UK currency is £ and the us currency is $

I was hoping it was just a mistake but I think it's been to long now.

[Bexie]

Nope, we can't buy from the US store. That's why there's separate stores for different countries.

[timekiller001^]

It's even gone from the French iTunes store, and France was more or less the European home for H!P.

I don't really think that a fee is the reason. The songs were on there for multiple years and some years ago, after only listing their new songs at their release, they also started offering their older songs. Maybe they had an agreement with Apple or a 3rd party representing them here which expired or there were licensing issues, which could explain the different treatment of US/EU now.

I think the sales in the EU were not too bad compared to the US. Everywhere, except for Japan, it was obvious they wouldnt sell thousands of copies.

 

Maybe it'll be resolved soon, maybe it won't. We'll see.

[Paramorning]

I hope so.

There's still no response from UF link. Although, I don't know how good their 'customer service' is, for all I know they may completely ignore direct messages.

Edit: just after I'd written that, I got a reply!

"Hello, I do not know all the details but the person in charge is working on this topic. Thank you for your understanding."

[Mizura]

ANGERME doesn't seem to be on US iTunes (or I just can't find anything), multiple stuff has been deleted there. A lot of Buono!, some of Berryz Koubou's older stuff. 5 is still gone

 

The Final Completion Box only has 2 tracks.

[ForeverEternal]

UFP does not have to pay iTunes to keep their songs online, so I'm sure sales have nothing to do with it.

I believe the Buono! and Berryz songs that were removed long ago were removed because they were anime songs (I guess they had to get permission from the anime creators to sell them internationally?)

Riyu, did you search specifically for ANGERME? Their only single with that name hasn't been released yet, so they can't be on iTunes yet.

[Paramorning]

The UK store did always have quite a bit of berryz (although no complete Buono albums). Maybe they had to take everything down to comply with the anime songs rule that ForeverEternal mentioned.

But with the reply I got, it looks like they're trying to fix it?

[Nao-kun]

^

Buono is different, the label change messed up a lot of things with the rights of their songs.

 

Nope, we can't buy from the US store. That's why there's separate stores for different countries.

 

You can buy from a itunes store in a different country, here is how:

 

Make a new itunes account, but do not register any of your debit / credit cards yet.

Import a itunes gift card from whatever country you want to buy music from.

Once that gift card is registered in itunes your account will be permanently associated to that countries itunes store.

[enfo]

I was looking forward to picking up the complete collection, or picking and choosing my favourites at least. But yeah, only having two songs in there feels a bit pointless.

Interested to see if they add more at any point.