iTunes Producer and Indies - Growing Pains?

According to reports, Apple finally released their "iTunes Producer" tool to independent record labels back in Mid-November.

This Apple tool was released to "Indie" record labels who had signed a contract with Apple in order to allow them to encode and transmit their music to Apple for inclusion into the iTunes Music Store. Apple initially hinted at this tool during their meeting with Indie labels back in June.

After some delays, the tool finally made its way into the hands of the Indie labels, but based on one report, the submission process is less-than-ideal. Reportedly, the tool allows little room for error and offers no method to correct submitted information. Beyond this, encoding and transmission of albums can take an excessive amount of time, with little feedback from Apple. As a result, there may be ongoing delays with representation of smaller indie labels on the iTunes Music Store.