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Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28 2003 , it proved the viability of Online Music Sales . As of July 2007, the store has sold 3 billion songs, accounting for more than 80% of worldwide online digital music sales. Most downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by FairPlay , Apple's version of Digital Rights Management . FEATURES AND RESTRICTIONS Pricing Songs were originally sold for a single price in all countries but Japan. In the United States and Canada, basic versions of songs cost US$ 0.99, while high quality versions of certain songs are additionally available for US$1.29. Songs cost NZ$ 1.79 in New Zealand, AU$ 1.69 in Australia, EU€ 0.99 in the eurozone (except Slovenia) and UK£ 0.79 in the United Kingdom. In Norway, songs cost 8.00 NOK per song, in Sweden 9.00 SEK and in Switzerland the price is 1.50 CH₣ . All European prices are in general comparable and oscillate around EU€0.99. In Japan, songs sell for JP¥ 150 or JP¥200. Previews, thirty seconds in length, are available free, prior to buying a song. Most albums cost US$9.99 in the U.S. volume discounts of up to 20% are available for purchases of more than 25,000 songs.1 Television episodes are available for US$1.99 each and in the UK for £1.89, as are music videos and short films. Feature-length movies sell for US$12.99. Movies and TV shows are available in the United States with the United Kingdom only being able to buy a small selection of TV shows as of August 29th 2007. Finally, games (compatible with IPod Classic models with video playback, and the 3rd generation IPod Nano ) cost US $4.99 each. There is also a weekly promotion in which one to three songs are available to download for free to logged-in users. Free downloads are available on Tuesdays, and remain free until the following Tuesday. Some artists choose to have select songs available for no charge. This is not available at all iTunes Stores worldwide. Some iTunes television programs have begun the same technique to encourage brand loyalty; although those stay longer. In fact, the iTunes Store proclaims a link to "Free TV" on its home page and the TV Shows section's home page which links to a complete listing of free TV shows. Availability To buy files through the store, a user must pay with an iTunes gift card or a credit card with a billing address in Australia , Austria , Belgium , Canada , Denmark , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , Republic Of Ireland , Italy , Japan , Luxembourg , Netherlands , New Zealand , Norway , Portugal , Spain , Sweden , Switzerland , United Kingdom , or the United States . Residents in other countries can only download free podcasts and previews. Customer support Apple provides no Customer Support for the iTunes Store over the phone, though Timothy Noah of '' Slate '' has found a Customer Service line.2 All customer service inquiries are handled online.3 BACKGROUND Debuting on April 28 2003 , the iTunes Music Store was the first online music store to gain widespread media attention. Apple's store allows the user to purchase songs and transfer them easily to the IPod through iTunes. The iPod is the only digital music player (besides some Motorola cell phones and the IPhone ) that are intended to work with the iTunes Store, although some other digital music players will work with iTunes. The iTunes Music Store launched initially with about 200,000 files available for download. On 5 September 2007 , Apple introduced the IPod Touch and announced that the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store would be available for it and the iPhone "later this month." iPhone Wi-Fi Music Store CATALOG CONTENT Music The store began after Apple signed deals with the five major record labels at the time, EMI , Universal , Warner Bros. , Sony Music Entertainment , and BMG (the latter two would later merge to form Sony BMG ). Music by more than 600 Independent Label artists was added later, the first being Moby on July 29 2003 . The store has more than 6,000,000 songs,4 including exclusive tracks from numerous popular artists. Not all artists are available on iTunes, including some popular ones such as The Beatles , Led Zeppelin , and Radiohead . New songs are added to the iTunes catalog every day, while the iTunes Store is updated each Tuesday. Apple also releases a 'Single of the Week' and usually a 'Discovery Download' on Tuesdays, which are available for free for one week. Some artists have had their music removed from the store; perhaps the most notable case is the music of Frank Zappa ; a significant portion of his music was added to the iTunes store in August 2005 and then in August 2006 removed. Downloaded songs come with song information (name, artist, album) already filled out, though iTunes provides a service to do this for songs not purchased from the store. Songs also come with album artwork. As of the release of iTunes 7, the artwork can be obtained for songs not purchased from the store for free if the user has an iTunes Store account. Purchased songs do not come with lyrics already typed in to the application's window for them; nor does iTunes provide a service for acquiring the missing lyrics. However, they can easily be obtained using a third-party Web site or Dashboard widget. Sub-divisions When entering the U.S. music store, there are multiple sub-divided stores that one can go into. These stores are either found under 'More In Music,' 'Genres,' 'Pre-Orders,' 'Celebrity Playlists' and 'Free Downloads.' Within 'More In Music,' one can enter various random stores such as Starbucks Entertainment and ITunes Essentials . Within 'Genres,' one can enter music stores that only have one genre such as Blues or Reggae . There are a total of 20 genres in the U.S. music store. 'Pre-Orders' lists albums that one can pre-order before the album is released. 'Celebrity Playlists' contains lists of songs chosen and described by celebrities. 'Free Downloads' are songs that subscribed iTunes Store users can obtain for free. On November 1 2006 , Apple created a new category for Latin content, "iTunes Latino". Telemundo and Mun2 made some of their popular programs available for purchase, becoming the first Hispanic television content in the store. It offers music, music videos, audiobooks, podcasts and television shows in Spanish in a single concentrated area. The brief descriptions given to the content is in Spanish as well as several sub-categories. Gibraltarian Flamenco Metal band Breed 77 , released an exclusive album called Un Encuentro to coincide with the launch of "iTunes Latino". It features 11 songs, all from previous albums, but all sung in Spanish . Audiobooks The iTunes Store also includes over 20,000 audiobooks, encoded at 32 kbit/s. Ninety second previews are offered for every book. These books are provided by Audible.com . This is the same format available if the user signs up directly with Audible.com and chose the "iPod" format. The main difference is that it is unnecessary to sign up for a subscription to get audiobooks as is the case with Audible. A small discount is provided through buying audiobooks through the iTunes Store, but on a selective basis by Apple in comparison to an "always on member discount" if one has an Audible subscription. Video In October 2005, Apple announced the latest iPod would be capable of playing video files, which would be sold online through the iTunes Store in the U.S.5 These videos included 2000 Music Video s and episodes of popular Television programs. Apple made a deal with Disney to be the first supplier of TV shows, the first shows available included episodes of '' Lost '' and '' Desperate Housewives '' with each episode becoming available the day after it originally aired on broadcast TV. Several short animated films by Pixar are also available. The selling of videos on iTunes sparked considerable debate as to whether there was a paying audience for programming available for free on TV. As MP3 Newswire pointed out, users are not so much paying for the TV programs themselves. Instead they are really paying for a service that offers the convenience of someone else digitizing free broadcast episodes for them for their portable device, each episode in commercial-free form, and a convenient place to select and download individual shows. Through an updated version of QuickTime Pro , users can create their own videos for the iPod, including digitized versions of programs recorded on their VCR if they wish to take the time and effort to save the cost. In July of 2006, the '' Aquaman '' pilot became available for download. It was the first show offered on iTunes that has never aired on a network.http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-aquaman-itunes,0,5970778.story On , Miramax and Touchstone Pictures .http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/12/live-from-the-steve-jobs-keynote-its-showtime/ On the same date, Apple increased the resolution of videos and movies sold on the iTunes Store from 320x240 ( QVGA ) to 640x480 ( VGA ).http://www.apple.com/itunes/overview/ Later in December 2006, Apple started releasing full-length film trailers for free in iPod format 320x240, 640x480 Apple format, and HD quality videos. On January 9 2007 , Apple announced during the Macworld keynote that Paramount Pictures ' catalog would be added to the iTunes Store, bringing the total amount of movies up to 250+. The service is currently U.S. only. On February 12 2007 , a press release announced the addition of movies from Lionsgate to the iTunes store, bringing the total number of movies available to over 400.6 On April 11 2007 , Apple announced that MGM Studios has made select titles available on the iTunes store, bringing total movie offerings through iTunes to over 500.7 MGM stated that it has the largest modern movie library in the world. Its catalog includes such classics as '' RoboCop '', '' West Side Story '', and '' Mad Max ''. On June 11 2007 , it was discovered that Apple was in talks with several Hollywood studios to make their new movies available as movie rentals on iTunes. Titles would be rented for US$2.99 and would expire after a set amount of days.8 On August 29 2007 , a selection of TV shows became available in the UK online store at a price of £1.89 per episode, including Lost , Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives .9 Dispute with NBC On August 31 2007 , Apple announced that NBC 's 2008 TV lineup would not be available on iTunes10. NBC had informed Apple the previous day that it would not be renewing its contract11. Apple has publicly asserted that NBC would only renew their contract if Apple agreed to a price increase of $4.99 per episode, which they did not. NBC disputes that claim, claiming that Apple balked at NBC's request to package shows together and make wholesale pricing more flexible.12. NBC claims that they never asked to double the wholesale price and insists that their shows will be sold by the iTunes Store through early December.13. iPod games See Also: iPod games On and Royal Solitaire . On 27 February 2007 iTunes released Ms. Pac-Man . On 24 April 2007 , Apple Inc also released iQuiz at a purchasing price of US$0.99 (UK£0.79). Additional 'Trivia Packs' can be added to iQuiz through the use of the IQuiz Maker software. On 22 May 2007 , iTunes released a version of the ''Lost'' video game, based on the TV Series Of That Name . Also, on 17 July 2007 The Sims Bowling was added. On July 29 , EA released The Sims Pool, before Sony BMG's first game "Musika" on August 7 2007 . The current game titles available to download as of August 7 2007 (in catalogue order) are:
MARKET SHARE AND MILESTONES The iTunes Store has had many milestones since it had launched. The store sold about 275,000 tracks in its first 18 hours and more than 1,000,000 tracks in its first 5 days. When released for Windows in October 2003, iTunes was downloaded more than 1,000,000 times in the first 3 days and more than 1,000,000 songs were sold in that period. On December 15 2003 Apple announced that it had sold 25 million songs since the launch in April. In January 2004 at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco , Steve Jobs announced (Sellers, 2004) that an unnamed person had purchased $29,500 worth of music. On March 15 2004 , Apple announced that iTunes Music Store customers had purchased and downloaded 50 million songs from the iTunes Music Store. They also reported that customers were purchasing 2.5 million songs a week which translates to a projected annual run rate of 130 million songs a year. The 50 millionth song was "The Path of Thorns" by Sarah McLachlan .14 On April 28 2004 , the iTunes Music Store marked its first anniversary with 70 million songs sold, clear dominance in the paid online music market and a slight profit.15 The store also offers hundreds of movie trailers and music videos, in an attempt to boost soundtrack sales. In the conference, Steve Jobs reiterated that a subscription service is still not in the interest of customers and reported that only 5 million of the 100 million songs offered in the Pepsi giveaway campaign were redeemed, which he blamed on technical problems in Pepsi distribution. According to an Apple Press Release released on August 10 2004 , the iTunes Music Store is the first store to have a catalog of more than one million songs.16 Also, the iTunes Music Store at that point maintained an over 70% market share of legal music downloads. On September 1 2004 the iTunes Music Store had surpassed 125 million songs sold.17 On October 14 2004 the iTunes Music Store had surpassed 150 million songs sold.18 On December 16 2004 the iTunes Music Store had surpassed 200 million songs sold. Ryan Alekman of Belchertown , Massachusetts , USA , bought the 200 millionth song, which was one of the tracks on U2 's digital Box Set '' The Complete U2 ''.19 On January 24 2005 the iTunes Music Store sold a quarter of a Billion songs worldwide.20 On March 2 2005 , the iTunes Music Store had surpassed 300 million songs sold.21 On May 10 2005 Apple announced that it had sold over 400 million songs.22 On July 5 2005 Apple announced a promotion counting down to half a billion songs sold.23 On July 18 2005 Apple announced that it had sold 500 million songs. Amy Greer of Lafayette , Indiana , USA , bought the 500 millionth song, " Mississippi Girl " by Faith Hill .24 On October 31 2005 Apple announced that iTunes Music Store customers had purchased and downloaded 1 million videos since the launch of video support on October 12 2005 .25 On December 6 2005 Apple announced that iTunes Music Store customers had purchased and downloaded over 3 million videos.26 On January 10 2006 Apple announced that the iTunes Music Store had sold 850 million songs and 8 million videos.27 On February 23 2006 Apple announced that the iTunes Music Store had sold 1 billion songs and 15 million videos. The billionth song was “Speed of Sound” by Coldplay , purchased by Alex Ostrovsky of West Bloomfield , Michigan .28 On September 12 2006 Steve Jobs announced in his "It's Showtime" keynote that Apple had 88% of the legal U.S. music download market, 1.5 billion songs downloaded, and 45 million videos sold. On January 10 2007 Apple announced that the iTunes Store had sold more than 2 billion songs, 50 million television episodes, and over 1.3 million feature-length films.29 On April 9 2007 Apple announced that the iTunes Store had sold more than 2.5 billion songs.30 On April 11 2007 Apple announced that the iTunes Store had sold more than two million movies, making it the world’s most popular online movie store. On July 31 2007 Apple announced that the iTunes Store had sold more than 3 billion songs.31 INTERNATIONALIZATION | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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