Starbucks to Give Away 50 Million Songs

Starbucks has announced that they will give away 50 million free digital songs to their customers to promote the new wireless iTunes music service offered in their stores. The service, announced earlier this month, lets users of Apple’s iPhone and the new iPod Touch download songs playing in a Starbucks shop directly to these portable players. From Oct. 2nd through Nov. 7th, the 10,000+ stores will give out 1.5 million "Song of the Day" cards. The cards will offer free tunes from artists like Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joss Stone, John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Annie Lennox, and Band of Horses. The cards can then be redeemed for tunes at the Apple iTunes music store. However, since the service will only be launching at 600 Starbucks shops in Seattle and New York on Oct. 2nd, and then San Francisco in early November, only customers in those cities will be able to actually download the songs directly to their devices…the rest of us will have to go online on our computers and download the songs the old-fashioned way. Also just announced are limited-edition reloadable purchasing cards that include two free iTunes downloads when you register them online.