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Apple's iTunes nears 10 billionth song download

by Michael Grothaus Feb 11th 2010 at 5:30PM


Apple has announced it is nearing the 10 billion mark for iTunes music downloads.
iTunes changed the way you buy music, making songs and albums available for download, day or night. Seven years later, we're about to celebrate our biggest milestone for music, yet -- 10 billion songs downloaded.
In celebration of this, Apple is running a promotion that awards a $10,000 iTunes gift card to the person who downloads the 10 billionth song.

The promotion is open to residents (age 13 or higher) of all fifty States, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding the Province of Quebec), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

You can enter up to 25 times a day by buying songs. Alternatively, Apple doesn't require you to purchase a song to qualify for the promotion: they've set up a handy "No Purchase Necessary" form which you can fill out up to 25 times per day.

From the tally on their counter, it looks like they come 1,000 songs closer to the 10 billionth download every eleven seconds. At the time of this writing, that means they should hit the 10 billion mark in a little over two weeks.

Apple has posted the Official Rules here.

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Apple has announced it is nearing the 10 billion mark for iTunes music downloads. iTunes changed the way you buy music, making songs and...
 

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11 Comments

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Jason

That's it. Contest over. 10,000,000,000+ songs downloaded. Too bad I didn't get in there a little sooner.

February 24 2010 at 4:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
nogreenworld

and it's done...

February 24 2010 at 4:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
EA

Hi!
If you want buy at iTunes something (at action "iTunes reach 10 billion song downloads") new and not extra ordinary, support musician Evgeniy Anderson and buy 2 of his new album on iTunes. 1. RED AIR 2.OVERGROUND.
search it at iTunes store.


http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/ev...on/id346423901

February 19 2010 at 8:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
EA

Hi!
If you want buy at iTunes something (at action "iTunes reach 10 billion song downloads") new and not extra ordinary, support musician Evgeniy Anderson and buy 2 of his new album on iTunes. 1. RED AIR 2.OVERGROUND.
search it at iTunes store.


http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/ev...on/id346423901

February 19 2010 at 8:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Marky

Well, that depends on whether you accept the American definition of a billion (1000 million) or the European definition, (1 million million). The American billion often called a millard in most of the world unless discussing financial matters when the American definition dominates.

Need more caffine...mind is beginning to wander... :-)

February 12 2010 at 2:35 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jake

Um... if you can just fill in an entry form that counts towards the song counter, doesn't that kinda mean that 10 billions songs haven't been downloaded....

February 11 2010 at 10:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Jake's comment
Bill

Your free entries aren't being counted. They're just enabling you to win once the billionth song has been reached.

I'd like to know why they allow you to make a free entry. This seems to be standard sweepstakes practice. Is it a legal requirement?

February 16 2010 at 1:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Albert

I wonder how accurate that counter is.

February 11 2010 at 9:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tim Irwin

The way I understand the rules is the winner is the Entry at the 10 billion mark? So Entry's before or after wont count? Kinda like a radio station call in contest for the 10 th billion caller?

February 11 2010 at 6:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Tim Irwin's comment
VanillaSpice

Actually, yes, Tim is correct. From the T&Cs-

"The prize will be awarded for the entry (either through a song download or through the non-purchase online entry) sent immediately following the download of the 9,999,999,999th song. The potential winner will be determined by the order of the entries received. In the event that more than one entrant would be a winner based on the simultaneous timing of entries, one entrant will be randomly selected from those entrants as the winner."

So the contest is live after 9999999999 downloads. The next entry (download or free entry) comes first. If there are several potential winners (i.e. they all have identical timestamps) then one of them will be randomly chosen as the winner.

February 11 2010 at 10:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
VanillaSpice

The next entry comes first??? No, I meant, the next entry wins. Sorry.

February 11 2010 at 10:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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