Sony and Apple Strike Deal for the Australian Music Store

Apple and Sony BMG have finally struck a deal that puts Sony BMG content on the Australian iTunes Music store. This marks an end to the dispute between Apple and Sony, a dispute that has left its mark on the Australian and Japanese versions of the iTunes Music Store.

Reports started coming in yesterday that the Australian Music store has discreetly made albums and songs available from Sony BMG artists but at that time there was no official statement form either Apple or Sony. As of now, the over one million Australian iPod owners can start legally downloading the music of some of the biggest names in pop.

Emmanuel Candi, Sony BMG Australia's general manager of business strategy and human resources, said that the deal was struck at the company's offices in New York, late last week. This should appease a large number of artists that have publicly protested the fact that their work was not available to the public through the iTunes Music store, something that Sony BMG was well aware of. "It's fair to say a number of artists were keen to see iTunes being able to stock our release," said Candi.
Rob Small, a spokesman for Apple Australia, says his company was "delighted to have them on board".

The Australian version of the iTunes Music Store has had its share of bumps in the past. It was slow in coming, primarily because of extensive negotiations between the four major record companies. In the end, Apple launched the store without any of the Sony BMG content.

One of the issues was the store's pricing policy, which uses one single price, $1.69, for all individual tracks, while other similar services offers songs from 99 cents.

The second issue was the fact that the downloaded music is not compatible with Sony's MP3 players which have been extremely poor sellers when compared to Apple's own iPod.