Billboard Magazine Offers Details On Apple's Upcoming Music Service

by , 5:15 PM EDT, April 25th, 2003

Information about Apple's upcoming music service, set to be unveiled during Apple's media event on April 28th, according to most mainstream media outlets, is flowing fast and hard. Billboard Magazine has published a piece today that offers and confirms more details on the service. According to Billboard, the system won't require a subscription, will offer songs for 99 cents (US) a piece, or US$10 per album, allow you to burn them to a CD, transfer them to your iPod, and make paying for songs fairly easy. From Billboard:

Label sources tell Bulletin that the service is an a la carte download store -- not unlike that of rival Liquid Audio -- that is built into Apple's iTunes player. No subscription is required for the service, and tracks are expected to retail for an average of 99 cents. Once purchased, tracks are transferred to the consumer's iTunes music library and are automatically synched to the user's iPod portable player.

Content can also be burned to CD. Credit-card information is stored on file in the store's shopping-cart system so the consumer does not have to re-enter the information for each purchase. The offering is expected to be made available initially only to users of Apple computers.

As part of its announcement, Apple is expected to unveil content-licensing deals with all five major labels. The Apple service is also expected to feature music from high-profile acts whose repertoire has not previously been available for digital distribution.

You can find more information in Billboard's full article.

Some of these details aren't new. A price point of 99 cents per song has been bandied about like last week's baseball scores since the LA Times broke the story of the music service in March. Other outlets have reported that Apple would be charging US$10 per album, as well. Billboard's story does bring new light on transferability, the purchasing system, as well as adding confirmation that previously unavailable acts would be available for download. The Wall Street Journal reported the latter news this morning.

TMO will be attending Monday's press event, and we will bring you coverage as soon as is possible. The event starts at 10:00 AM PDT. Apple is also offering a satellite feed of the event.