LONDON, June 15 (UPI) -- Apple's iTunes on-line music service, now available for users of Windows XP and 2000, has been launched in parts of Europe, the BBC said Tuesday.
The service has proven enormously popular in the United States, where users have downloaded more than 70 million titles during the service's first year of operation, the news agency said.
The service will be in direct competition with Napster, which has been available for two weeks in the United Kingdom, and OD2's European services. Most albums cost about $13.
iTunes offers more than 700,000 songs, all of which can be downloaded to a PC, copied to a CD or played on an iPod.
Although the market is still in its infancy, more than 500,000 music tracks have been downloaded legally in the United Kingdom so far this year, the BBC said.
The major record labels are excited the industry-backed music stores are launching in Europe because they want to see an end to pirated tracks being swapped over the Internet.
