Despite Apple's higher European iTunes pricing when compared with the US and Canada, they have succeded in selling over 50 million tunes as downloads from its European download service since their European launch one year ago. At present the European iTunes has over 1 million songs in its catalogue and features music from all the major record labels as well as over 1,000 independent labels. Apple's vice president of Applications is delighted with its European success.
When it comes to worldwide sales, iTunes has so far sold over 430 million songs as iTunes downloads and currently reaches over 70% of the global music market; covering 19 countries, including the US and Canada. Besides music downloads, the iTunes music store offers audio books, jewel case creation, album pre-ordering as well as WMA to AAC conversion. Music purchased from iTunes can be transferred to an unlimited number of iPods and CDs (7 for a given playlist) and be played on up to 5 PCs. GristyMcFisty used our news submit to let us know about the following news:
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'We're thrilled to have sold and delivered over 50 million songs in our first year," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Applications. 'We'd like to thank European music fans for making iTunes such a success." All iTunes Music Stores offer the same innovative features, breakthrough pricing and seamless integration with iPod® that have made iTunes the number one online music service in the world. Since its launch just two years ago, the iTunes Music Store has extended its reach to more than 70 percent of the global music market with stores in 19 countries, including the US and Canada, and more than 430 million songs purchased and downloaded worldwide. |
With iTunes doing so well, it will likely not take that long before they reach the 1 billion mark for global iTunes' sales. While iTunes still has pretty much the same DRM restrictions as when they first launched, apparently they do not look as bad now when compared to with what Sony BMG and some other record labels have started have started putting on their CDs. For example Sony BMG only allows up to 5 'protected' copies to be made, where as iTunes allows up to 7 CDs to be recorded without any restrictions. There is no restriction to prevent someone from copying or ripping these iTunes recorded discs to an unprotected format (such as MP3) either.
It is interesting to see iTunes offering WMA to AAC conversion, however it does not appear to support the conversion of any DRM protected music, especially since Apple wants iPod owners to stick with the iTunes store.
Feel free to discuss and find out more about iTunes on our Music Download, Peer to Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues forum.
Source: Apple - Press Releases
So the RIAA can't say shit like they are loosing money because of illegal DLs.
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