Throwback Thursday: The iTunes Music Store Catalogues Over 1 Million Songs

Throwback Thursday: The iTunes Music Store Catalogues Over 1 Million Songs

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On this day in 2004, The iTunes Music Store announced that it had become the first online music service to have a catalog of more than 1 million songs. Launched in late April of 2003, The iTune Music Store quickly became the largest music vendor in the world and revolutionized how people purchase and experience their music. In its first 18 hours, the store sold about 275,000 tracks, and more than 1 million tracks were sold in its first 5 days. On December 15, 2003, Apple announced that it had sold 25 million songs. Before it’s debut, most online music was downloaded illegally off of sites like Napster or Limewire. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, sought to create a service that allowed people to access music legally, so in 2002, he made an agreement with the five major record labels to offer their content through iTunes. Originally, all songs on the service were sold at the same price, but Apple introduced tiered pricing in 2007. At the Macworld 2008 Keynote, Steve Jobs announced iTunes movie rentals. Today, the iTunes Store has expanded from just music downloading to a music and app store, as well as a place to rent or purchase movies and TV shows.