I guess we should make an official statement on our site regarding the recent rigamarole surrounding these iTunes LPs as reported by Gizmodo. Here’s our story:

We approached our distributor a couple weeks ago to see how we go about submitting an iTunes LP to the iTunes music store. The response was that Apple was charging a fee of $10,000 to produce them, but aside from the cost, they were not being opened up to indie labels (like ourselves). That chapped my hide a bit because what we lack in huge budgets at Chocolate Lab, we attempt to make up for with quality and services. Take for instance the iTunes booklet. We’re now designing booklets to be included with every CLR iTunes album download. they’re not expensive to make, but we want to do everything we can to give the end consumer the best experience possible.

I have no information other than what was given to me, so in regards to the recent statements by someone at Apple, it’s nice to hear that the $10,000 fee doesn’t exist and the LP format will be opened up to indie artists soon. I’m not ashamed of speaking out, given the information that I had because that’s my responsibility and my right as an American. Erin Brockovich I may not be, but at least I tried to stand up for something that didn’t seem right to me. If you’d like to fault me for that, so be it.

It’s our official statement that, “We love iTunes, hate exclusion.”

Sincerely,
Brian McKinney