[NewsPoster]

Not leaving any stone unturned, Apple made a final announcement during the iPhone 6 unveiling that moved away from hardware. After bringing the much-rumored group U2 to the stage to perform their new single during the event, Tim Cook and Bono played out a little event on stage that would lead to one of the biggest musical launches in history, and it was happening on iTunes.

U2 worked with Apple to put their newest album, which the band said they just finished recording, Sounds of Innocence up on the iTunes store for free. Rather than giving it away as an exclusive to long-time fans or customers of the service, Cook announced that it would be available for free to the more than 500 million iTunes customers in 119 countries. If each record is counted as a sale, U2 could be breaking numerous daily sales records in a mere matter of seconds.

The new album would show up in the iTunes library, with users only need to download the album from the cloud to own a copy. Users can find it through the album sort section, as it doesn't appear to show up in individual song lists. Songs of Innocence is live now, and will be free for users until October 13.

There's no limitation for new iTunes members either, as those that join iTunes until October 13 will be able to download the album for free, according to Cook. For those that might be on the fence about picking it up, it can be streamed from iTunes Radio in a featured station, or heard on Beats Music starting September 10.

Bono and Cook did a little dance on stage about putting the album out to as many people as possible in as little as five seconds. After playing around with the idea of free, the two entered into a countdown that would post the free album online. Cook announced that it was the largest worldwide album launch in history. Since it was going out to every iTunes account holder, this could hold true.

As it stands, the deal is much larger than previous digital album launches such as Samsung's partnership with rapper Jay-Z. Under that deal, Samsung pushed out one million copies of Jay-Z's album Magna Carta Holy Grail to Galaxy devices three days before its official release.

No information on how the deal was structured was provided, but if the album is to be certified for sales records it's likely that Apple is paying for the privilege to release the album for free on such a large scale, and indeed a payment was mentioned during Bono's "negotiations." The album likely won't hold the fastest album release following the completion of recording, as Jack White released a copy of a live recording of one of his songs in just shy of four hours after playing it on stage. However, depending on how many users download or stream the album to their personal collections, the U2 record could easily be a candidate for fastest-"selling" album of all time.

[bobolicious]

...Well initial gratitude notwithstanding, is this also incentive to bring fence sitters into the credit 'ecosystem', iCloud & EULA...? Are there any privacy concerns...?

[Inkling]

Think Irish-Dutch Sandwich. That's what U2-Bono and Apple have in common. They both use it to evade the sorts of taxes the rest of us pay. Rest assured. I won't be downloading this album.

[DiabloConQueso]

If the law allows it, then it's kosher activity. Change the law, beacuse right now, nothing illegal is going on with respect to corporate money in Ireland. Corporations keep their foreign money there because patriating those profits costs them an arm and a leg -- in fact, at a higher percentage than anywhere else in the world, in any other country.

What should really happen is the US stopping its practice of basically hyperinflated, over/double-taxation. If the US didn't want to take sometimes nearly 1/3rd of a company's profits *that were made overseas, from foreign people, in foreign countries, and already taxed in those countries*, perhaps more companies would be willing to bring that money into to the US.

Inkling, I highly doubt that you own a corporation that does business internationally and are patriating profits made with foreign money and already taxed in foreign lands. But if, in the off-chance, you do, and are patriating foreign profits and paying a corporate tax on the patriation of those profits, then you certainly understand my initial sentiment.

You and I and Apple pay our fair share of domestic taxes. Apple also is responsible for corporate taxes when they bring money they made overseas into the US (like all the already-taxed-in-China profits from selling iPhones in China, for example) -- I don't think you nor I do that each year when filing our federal tax statements.

Apple is not evading "the sorts of taxes the rest of us pay."

[FastiBook]

I cannot even find this album on itunes?

[I-ku-u]

I too had the problem of the album not appearing. I resolved it by checking the preference (on the store tab) of "Show iTunes in the Cloud purchases" - then it appeared a few moments later.