When the iTunes Store was first introduced (hey, remember when it was called the iTunes Music Store and all you could buy were DRMed music tracks? Those were the days) I thought people wouldn't spend much money there. Sure, it was pretty and easy to use but people don't want DRM laced music, thought I. Clearly, as with many things in my life, I was totally wrong. Apple just announced that people have downloaded over 5 billion songs from iTunes (notice they say 'downloaded,' and not 'bought.' This number includes all those freebies we list, as well as any promotional freebies Apple hands out with partners). Any way you slice it, that's a lot of songs.

Apple also said that people are renting and downloading over 50,000 movies a day. Not too shabby, given the greater expense and file sizes involved with movie transactions on iTunes.

Thanks, Cameron!

UK readers aren't the only ones who can now purchase and rent movies via iTunes, Canadian readers will be happy to note they can get in on the fun as well. Interestingly the viewing period for rentals in Canada also lasts for 48 hours, which leads me to believe that the US window will also increase (though we have no information to confirm that).

The Canadian store has over 1,200 movies to buy, 200 of which you can rent. The pricing is as follows:

• CAN$9.99 to purchase catalog titles
• CAN$14.99 to get recently released movies
• CAN$19.99 to purchase new movies
  
• CAN$3.99 for renting a library title (a dollar more for HD)
  
• CAN$4.99 for new release rental (a dollar more for HD)

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Update: I assumed you all knew I meant 'UK reader's when I said 'Japanese readers' in the first sentence. I blame the overwhelming excitement of this news. The error has been corrected.

Apple fans across the pond have long complained about their inability to purchase or rent movies from within iTunes. Those users now have reason to celebrate (and maybe give that Apple TV some use), as movies are now available in the UK iTunes Store!

According to the press release, 700 titles are available to purchase or rent, with over 100 titles available in high-definition. Some films will be available to purchase the same day as the DVD release.

When it comes to rentals, the policy seems to be pretty much the same as the US store, with one notable exception: the rental period is 48 hours. That should make LOTS of UK users happy.

Pricing is as follows:

• £6.99 for library titles
• £10.99 for new releases
• £2.49 for library rentals
• £3.49 for new release rentals
• High definition rentals will be £1 more

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

If you haven't been keeping track of the whole Radiohead/iTunes drama it went something like this TUAW summary:

iTunes: "You must sell the tracks"

RH: "We won't sell the tracks!"

iTunes: "You must sell the tracks"

RH: "We won't sell the tracks!"

iTunes: "Then don't sell the tracks!"

RH: "We are so out of here. Whole albums or nothing baby."

iTunes: "Laters."

Time passes

iTunes: "You must sell the tracks"

RHEvil Suit-Wearing EMI Folk: "Well...okay then."

RH: Curses! Foiled again!

Radiohead albums (including individual track sales) are now available for purchase at iTunes.

Thanks, Clancy

Last week, Apple's iTunes Store turned 5 years old. Now the blogosphere is buzzing with the fact that Apple said they had over "10 million" songs in their library, then later changed the page to say "6 million." That's a difference of 4 million songs unaccounted for. MacNN did the math and said that if they had 10 million songs, it would have accounted for a 66% increase in their catalog in only a month. MacNN has before and after pictures of the iTunes Store page showing the changes.

So... typo? Or is Apple doing some weird shuffling of their library?

[via MacNN]

On the iTunes Store (iTunes link), Apple is celebrating 5 years since the original iTunes Music Store launched on April 28, 2003. Each of the last five years (2003-7) is marked with bestsellers and staff favorites (conveniently arranged for you to add them to your own collection). Clearly in a glowing mood at recently becoming the largest music retailer in the US, they note cheerfully how the store has grown from a little "more than 200,000 songs and a handful of exclusive tracks" to a library of over 10 million today. It's just too bad they couldn't have coughed up some special pricing to help us celebrate, too.

Ars Technica managed to get access to unreleased data from NPD MusicWatch that shows that Apple is now the leading music retailer in the US, passing Walmart. Apparently the news was sent in an internal Apple email and Cupertino now controls 19% of retail music sales, against Walmart's 15% and number three Best Buy's 13%.

Needless to say, this is the first time a download retailer has taken the number one spot and represents a notable market share gain for Apple even since February. It will now be interesting to see if Apple can hold on to the top spot in the long run. In any case, this is a watershed moment and brings the mainstream death of the CD that much closer into view.

Update: Apple has since confirmed its position with a press release. "The iTunes Store became the largest music retailer in the US based on the amount of music sold during January and February 2008."

Thanks Nate!

I have an iPod, an iPhone, an Apple TV, and I manage all my music with iTunes as I am sure many, many other people out there do as well. Why do I mention this? Because some of my purchases (and yours too) contributed to making the iTunes Store the second largest music retailer in the US (according to NPD data) in 2007. That's right, iTunes is second only to Wal-Mart in sales of music (though the iTunes Store does lack those greeters that make shopping at Wal-Mart so pleasant).

Let's take a moment to reflect on this. Less than 10 years ago the idea that the second largest retailer of music wouldn't have a single brick and mortar store would seem ridiculous. Today, it is a reality and digital distribution can only get bigger. We're living in the future, I tells ya.

Apple also mentions that people downloaded over 20 million tracks on Christmas day alone. iTunes does face some tough competition (I'm a big fan of Amazon MP3), but the ease of use and integration with the iPod/iPhone really makes the iTunes Store a force to be reckoned with.

Thanks, zx.

Along with the iTunes update we noted earlier, Apple has introduced a new weekly special movie rental for 99 cents. Macrumors reports that each Thursday Apple will make available a new movie at the special price, good until the following Monday. You'll have the standard 30 days to watch it. The first special this week is The Hours (iTunes link).

This looks like a clever move to jump start the movie rental business. We can only hope that they'll also consider adding HD versions through Apple TV as well.

[via Infinite Loop]

The Beatles are now on iTunes-- kind of. George Harrison has become the last solo Beatle to be added to the iTMS, as iTunes now carries all of his solo work (including "Got My Mind Set on You"-- enjoy having that in your head for the rest of the day). That means that all the Beatles have now had their solo work added to the online store. There's John, Paul, now George, and that other guy. If you want them all, it's gonna take money, a whole lot of precious money. It's gonna take plenty of money, to do it right child. Stuck in your head yet?

And yet we still wait (well, most of us do) for the Beatles as a whole to appear on iTunes for purchase. It's become a kind of mythical event, hasn't it? Someday, the heavens will break open, earthquakes will rend the ground under our feet, and the world will end around us, but hopefully not before we can buy the White Album at the ITunes store.

Thanks, Eric!

NBC has gotten all the press in their big fight with Apple, but a few other companies are currently considering their options about what to do with iTunes pricing.

News Corp is apparently ready to draw a line in the sand. Their COO Peter Chernin says "negotiations will be prickly and dicey and contentious, like all negotiation are and like all negotiations should be." Interesting point of view there. He earlier promised that they wouldn't be pulling content from iTunes like NBC is (or at least says they are-- the content is still there for now, but on the way out soon), but says that they should be the ones determining prices for their products, not Apple. Which is true-- unless Apple believes otherwise. If Apple offers you $1 per song or nothing, Chernin, which one are you going to take?

And CBS, on the other hand, is asking everyone to just chill, OK? CEO Les Moonves is the only one that actually sounds like he knows what's going on at the iTunes store: "We look at iTunes as much as a promotional vehicle for our shows as a financial vehicle." That's exactly how everyone should see it-- we can watch these shows for free (with advertising) on television, or pay a nominal fee to watch them later on iTunes.

This doesn't help with NBC of course-- they're going to do what they want (including go to Amazon) no matter what CBS says. They are competitors, after all, but whether NBC pulls out or not, the Store isn't going anywhere-- there are lots of content providers still interested in it.

[via MacBytes]

The New York Post is reporting that Apple will shortly begin selling iPhone ringtones through the iTunes Store by allowing users to convert any iTunes song into a ringtone for an additional fee. Perhaps even more interesting is the claim that "Apple will also allow users to convert songs they have previously purchased through iTunes into a ringtone" and that users will be able to use any part of the song. From Apple's perspective this seems like an absolute no-brainer, with ringtones being a multi-billion dollar business worldwide. From a user perspective, however, the prospect of paying even more to turn I song I already bought into a ringtone is asinine, especially considering that there are free methods for getting ringtones on your iPhone. What do you think? What (if anything) would you be willing to pay to convert your iTunes purchases into iPhone ringtones? (The image shows a Ringtone tab in iTunes that engadget captured back in January at the iPhone's debut).

Imagine all the people... downloading John Lennon's songs. It isn't hard to do-- John Lennon's music is now available on the iTunes store as of last night. Right around 3AM, reader Ricky (thanks!) saw the graphic above pop onto the store, and noticed that Working Class Hero, among other albums, had arrived, and then disappeared about half an hour later. He speculated that they were working on a full release today.

And he was exactly right-- Apple has announced that sixteen of Lennon's solo works are now for sale on the iTS, including the "digital debuts" of the Lennon Legend and Acoustic collections. Additionally, for the next 30 days, six of the albums will include exclusive video content-- Working Class Hero looks like it has a "Give Peace a Chance" video on it, and Imagine includes a video for the classic title track. And all of the albums are available not only regular price ($.99 a song), but also at iTunes Plus prices, which means $1.29 a song, but completely DRM free.

First Paul McCartney, now Lennon, and the Beatles has to be just around the corner. Power to the people, right on!

Thanks, Ricky and Zack!

Earlier this week, Apple and EMI broke some serious ground in the digital music industry by announcing DRM-free music across the entirety of EMI's catalog, beginning with the iTunes Store. In the conference call, Steve Jobs cited interoperability as a key reason for the move; songs downloaded from the iTunes Store can only be played on iTunes, the iPod and other Apple products, and the record labels EMI decided to do something about this handicap. Everyone, from consumers to the EU, have been asking for the abolishment of DRM, and reactions to Steve Jobs' Thoughts on Music essay (which more or less agreed with us) ran the gamut, from Cory Doctorow's shoot-from-the-hip-and-not-from-the-head call-out to general intrigue and interest in what could actually happen to an industry when one of its front-runners calls for change. Regardless of what was said, EMI has taken the first step into a world of selling legitimate digital music sans-DRM through the iTunes Store. The big question, however, is how truly interoperable iTunes will allow these new downloads will be.

iTunes Store songs are in the AAC file format, not MP3. While this arguably standard/non-standard file type is considered by some to be proprietary to Apple and/or the iTunes Store, this is entirely not the case. Plenty of other software and DAPs (Digital Audio Players) support the AAC format, even including, as John Gruber points out, Microsoft's own iPod competitor, the Zune. If these non-Apple products don't support AAC, they easily could with a software plugin or firmware upgrade.

More important, however, is the fact that the iTunes Store is still the world's most popular legitimate digital download store, and that popularity could skyrocket even farther once they unleash these much, much higher quality downloads (higher than any digital store I know of) in a legitimate, affordable and DRM-free download. The newfound interoperability that Apple is boasting for its present and soon-to-be customers could meet a roadblock, however, if the company doesn't build compatibility for non-iPod devices into the iTunes software itself. While customers can buy DRM-free AAC files through the iTS, iTunes is still the gateway for easily moving those files from one's computer to a DAP, and the claims of interoperability and unparalleled experience could crumble quickly as consumers plug in their Creative Zens, Microsoft Zunes and [insert non-iPod here], only to find out that iTunes scoffs at their non-Apple-branded device.

Will Apple support other DAPs in iTunes? Could we see a 'sync with TiVo' option in the preferences of a forthcoming iTunes 7.5? Time will only tell, but Apple and EMI just opened the doors on the issues of DRM and interoperability - we'll just have to see whether consumers who own something other than an iPod are actually invited to the party.

First, the original Star Trek debuted in the iTunes Store, then the TV series (not movies) was pulled for some odd reason. Then the shows returned, but now we have a dedicated Star Trek section that's been beefed up with podcasts, music (soundtracks, really), audiobooks and more. Now all we need TNG and Farscape, and the iTS's Sci-Fi section will be complete.

In the TV Show comedy aisle, however, another classic has been added: American Dad, beginning with a season pass for Season 2 (1, strangely, is nowhere to be found) at $37.99. Now all we need is Family Guy and I might very well be able to cancel my Comcast cable service.