Apple releases iTunes music service in France, UK and Germany

June 15, 2004

Thanks to GristyMcFisty we know that Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, has today launched his music downloading service in Europe, or to be more precise, in Germany, France and the UK. The three countries acoount for 60% of European music sales.

In the UK there will be a flat 79p per song price, with most albums costing Â£7.99. The French and German stores will charge €0.99 and €9.99 respectively. The three new iTunes stores each appear in the national language and will have localised content to reflect the different music tastes:

European iTMS customers will have the same rights as in the US, with unlimited CD burning, the ability to copy songs to an unlimited number of iPods and to store songs on as many as five Macs or PCs. Jobs hinted that securing these rights was a big reason why the European versions of the store took so long: obtaining 'these landmark personal rights has taken more than a little negotiation,' he said.

Jobs was joined on stage by self-styled iTunes fan Alicia Keys, who sang four songs including a cover of Ray Charles' '(Night time is) the right time' with the words oh-so-subtly altered to 'night time is the right time to listen to iTunes'.

The iTunes Music Store is available for Mac and PC and requires the free iTunes software, available from www.apple.com/uk/itunes.

Source: PC Pro