ITunes Music Store

The iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is an online music service run by Apple Computer with its iTunes application. Introduced on April 28, 2003, the store, which uses DRM restrictions, has since been a dominant online music service and has proven the viability of online music sales.

Internationalization

Originally only Mac OS X users who had credit cards with a U.S. billing address could buy songs with the service, but Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, announced plans to support both Windows and non-American users. The Windows version of iTunes and support for the Windows platform from the iTunes Music Store were announced on October 16, 2003, with immediate availability.

Related Topics:
Steve Jobs - Windows - October 16 - 2003

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• On June 15, 2004, the iTunes Music Store was launched in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Songs were priced at 99 Euro cents ( €0.99) for France and Germany, and 79 pence (£0.79) for the United Kingdom. According to an Apple Press Release, the European iTunes Music Stores sold a combined total of 800,000 songs in one week, with 450,000 of those songs sold in the UK http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jun/23itunes.html.
• On October 26th 2004 nine countries were added to the iTunes Music Store in a large EU store expansion: Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. This extended availability to all countries in the Eurozone except for the Republic of Ireland, where the iTMS became available on January 6, 2005. These countries also pay €0.99 for songs, and all these stores share the same catalog and are available only in English. The French, German, American, and British stores are localized for their respective countries and have different catalogs. On December 3 2004 the British Office of Fair Trading referred the iTunes Music Store to the European Commission because it prevents consumers in one EU country from buying music from stores in other EU countries, in violation of EU free-trade legislation; the immediate cause of the referral was because the ?0.99 price charged in the Eurozone equates to 68 pence in sterling, rather than the 79 pence actually charged there.
• The iTunes Music Store was launched in Canada on December 3, 2004; Canadian customers pay $0.99 (CDN) per song.
• On November 18, 2004, Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that Apple would launch the iTunes Music Store in Japan in March 2005, with 100,000 songs http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/11/19.4.shtml. On 2005-06-07, the same paper said that the Japanese store was set to launch in August http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000050045832/.
• On May 10, 2005, the iTunes Music Store "went live" for Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark, after about two weeks of speculation about these countries (and Australia) receiving the store.
• As of yet, the Australian launch date has not been officially announced, though Forbes magazine stated on 8 September that "Apple is working to expand iTunes and plans to open up an Australian version of its iTunes online music store Oct. 3, according to people familiar with the negotiations". According to the Forbes article (which has promoted considerable comment on other sites), music publishers Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music are holding out on signing the agreement with Apple to release songs at a single price. To date, the promised rollout of the Australian iTunes Music Store has not occurred.
• Apple officially launched the iTunes Music Store in Japan on August 4, 2005, with 1 million songs available; 90% of songs are priced at 150 yen (1.34 dollars) http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/aug/04itms.html. In the next four days the store had sold one million songs--the pace faster than that of the U.S. store http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/aug/08itms.html. This opening to the world's second largest music market, where iPod controls about 30% market share, came after a long delay. In addition, Apple failed to have one set price for singles. Pundits have speculated that this may indicate the introduction of new price structure to the rest of the stores in future, in favor of record labels who would like to see higher prices for new songs.