iTunes EUROPE

[Steven H]

Despite all the rumours, Apple’s iTunes Music Store is now available in Germany, France and the UK. Steve Jobs himself presented his new undertaking at a press conference in London. Contrary to all reports, which claimed that the US pricing model could be used, songs will cost €0.99 each including VAT and most albums come at €9.99. Albums can be downloaded with a click. In the UK, the prices are 79 pence and £7.99.

Apple is starting out with a repertoire of around 700,000 tracks — more than any rival in Europe. According to Steve Jobs, the majors and hundreds of indie labels have licensed their songs for sale on iTunes. Jobs claimed that music videos are also increasingly part of the range and showed the promo for Jamie Cullen’s "All At Sea".

All three branches are tailored to the respective countries: For Germany, for example, there are exclusive tracks by Herbert Grönemeyer, Beginner, Rosenstolz and Seeed. Jobs added that, from October, a pan-European shop will be available in English and also mentioned numerous exclusive offers: Alicia Keys, who played a few songs live in London, declared that she is an iPod user and supplied exclusive material to the service.

Jobs also announced a collaboration with AOL: In future, AOL users will be able to access the existing AOL MusicStore and iTunes, while Apple will incorporate the Sessions@AOL, previously exclusive to AOL, in the iTunes system. The presentation was also of interest to numerous figures from the music business: For example, Sony Germany boss Balthasar Schramm, Universal chairman Jorgen Larsen and AOL manager Boris Rogosch were present.

A large number of tracks, including some by ATB and Scooter, are already online.

http://www.apple.de/itunes