iTunes Music Store Turns 20 Today: ‘Just 99 Cents Per Song’

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Apple launching the iTunes Music Store, allowing Mac users to download music for “just 99 cents per song.”

At launch, the iTunes Music Store offered over 200,000 songs from music labels such as Sony, Universal, and Warner, with free 30-second previews of any song. The store provided convenient access to songs on an à-la-carte basis at a time when pirating music was rampant via peer-to-peer file sharing programs such as LimeWire and KaZaA.

“The iTunes Music Store offers the revolutionary rights to burn an unlimited number of CDs for personal use and to put music on an unlimited number of iPods for on-the-go listening,” said Apple’s former CEO Steve Jobs, in an April 28, 2003 press release. “Consumers don’t want to be treated like criminals and artists don’t want their valuable work stolen. The iTunes Music Store offers a groundbreaking solution for both.”

Apple expanded iTunes and the online music store to Windows in October 2003. At the time, Apple said customers had purchased more than 13 million songs from the iTunes Music Store, making it the “number one download music service in the world.”

Apple has gradually phased out the iTunes brand over the past few years, and the music store is now located in the Music app on the Mac. iTunes has also been overshadowed by Apple Music and other streaming music services, with many customers now opting to pay a monthly subscription fee for unlimited access to up to 100 million songs.