BEST BRANDED NAMES IN MUSIC INDUSTRY

iTunes Store 9.0.2 under Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Opened	April 28, 2003 (as iTunes Music Store)
Pricing model	À la carte, tiered; limited time rentals available for some movies
Platforms	Mac OS X, Windows, Apple TV, and iOS.
Format	Unprotected AAC (.m4a) @ 256 kbit/s (music), protected AAC (.m4p) @ 32 and 64 kbit/s (audiobooks), unprotected MPEG-4 Video (.m4v) (music videos), protected MPEG-4Video (.m4v) (other video)
Restrictions	(Protected) Music — streaming to five computers every 24 hours, unlimited CDs (seven with an unchanged playlist), unlimitediPods and iPhones.
Catalogue	More than 28 million songs worldwide, 1,000,000+ podcasts (USA), 40,000+ music videos (USA), 3,000+ TV shows (USA), 20,000+ audiobooks(USA), 2,500+ movies (USA), 300,000+ App Store Apps
Preview	90 seconds (Music, TV, & Video) / 90 seconds (Audiobooks) / 30+ seconds (Movies)
Streaming	Previews and Podcasts only
Protocol	iTunes Music Store Protocol (itms://)
Availability	See article  Argentina  Australia  Austria  Belgium  Bolivia  Brazil  Bulgaria  Canada  Chile  Colombia  Costa Rica  Cyprus  Czech Republic  Denmark  Germany  Dominican Republic  Ecuador  Spain  Estonia  Finland  France  United Kingdom  Greece  Guatemala  Honduras  Hungary  Ireland  Italy  Japan  Latvia  Lithuania  Luxembourg  Mexico  Malta  Netherlands  Nicaragua  Norway  New Zealand  Panama  Peru  Poland  Portugal  Paraguay  Romania  Slovenia  El Salvador  Switzerland  Slovakia  Sweden  United States  Venezuela
Features	Allowance, "Just For You", Celebrity Playlists, gift certificates and gift cards, iMix, billboard charts, advanced search
Customer support	Web only; See article
Website	itunes.com

The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple Inc. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, it has been the largest music vendor in the United States since April 2008, and the most popular music vendor in the world since February 24, 2010, when it served its 10 billionth song download. It now offers over 28 million songs, videos and apps; by October 4, 2011, the store had sold 16 billion songs. The iTunes Store's revenues in the first quarter of 2011 alone totalled nearly US$1.4 billion.

While most downloaded files initially included restrictions on their use, enforced by FairPlay, Apple's implementation of digital rights management, iTunes later initiated a shift into selling DRM-free music in most countries, marketed as iTunes Plus. On January 6, 2009, Apple announced that DRM had been removed from 80% of the entire music catalog in the U.S. Full iTunes Plus availability was achieved on April 7, 2009 in the U.S., coinciding with the introduction of a three-tiered pricing model; however, television shows, many books, and movies are still FairPlay-protected.