iTunes does prefer Digital Service Providers over Independent Artists

After a few weeks of trying to sign up on iTunes (which was my first attempt at reviving my online distribution of music), I got today an email from them:

Thank you for your interest in iTunes.

After careful consideration of your application, we believe that the most efficient way to get your content up on iTunes in a timely fashion would be for you to deliver the content through one of the several digital service providers with whom we currently work.

For your information, below is a list of several companies that can encode and deliver your music content to iTunes. Should you be interested, please determine which digital service provider is appropriate for your particular content.

This is a clear indication that iTunes prefers to deal with established artists / labels and with those online music distributors like WaTunes. They appended a list of those providers which does not appear to be complete - the latest additions of online music distributors are not included. I am still posting their list here, for reference (just Google the names):

Based in North America

Avatar*
Catapult*
CD Baby*
IDEA
Ingrooves
IODA
IRIS Distribution
Redeye Distribution
The Orchard*
Tunecore*
Virtual Label
* known to accept independent artists


Based in Europe (and where located)

AWAL (UK)
Artspages (NO)
Basepoint Media (DK)
Believe (FR)
Broad Street Digital (UK)
DiGiDi (DK)
IC records (IS & UK)
Kiver (IT)
Kontor New Media (DE, IT, PT)
Kudos (UK)
La Cúpula [House of Music] (ES)
N.E.W.S (BE)
Portal Latino (ES)
Ordis (AT)
State 51 (UK)
The Music Business Organisation AS (DK)
Uploader/IODA (UK)
Zebralution (DE)


Based in Australia & New Zealand

AmpHead Entertainment (The Orchard AU)
Musicadium
Show Off Recordings
Digital Rights Management NZ/Amplifiger Digital


Based in Japan

Rightsscale
BounDEE