Apple has announced that its European iTunes Music Stores have sold more than 200 million songs since launching two years ago. The catalog includes more than three million songs from major publishers and more than 1,000 indie labels.
Apple notes that iTunes Music Stores now operate in 17 European countries — they started with the U.K., France and Germany in June, 2004. Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes, said in a statement that sales of songs through European iTunes Music Stores have tripled in the past year, from 50 million to 200 million cumulatively.
Apple’s domination of the European online music download market hasn’t been without growing pains, however. The company has faced hurdles with legislation in France that would force download services like iTunes to open their Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology to makers of other digital music players; what’s more consumer ombudsmen in Norway, Denmark and Sweden have complained that the iTunes Music Stores’ terms of service violate consumer laws in their countries.