Once again, TUAW is pleased to present you with a selection of free songs and videos from around the world. Many of these iTMS items won't be free for long, so grab your copies before the week is up. And don't forget: If you want to buy these on your iPhone or iPod touch, make sure to sign into your account in iTunes before you sync.

Follow the jump for all the iTunes freebie goodness.

I was just as much a naysayer as Dave was when the service first came out (and for the record, I haven't used it all either), but apparently there are lots of people who do use Apple's "Complete My Album" service in iTunes -- the NYT says that it has become a prime selling tool, especially for bands and labels that pre-release singles from their album in a digital format. A whopping 52% of Lil Wayne's latest album sales on iTunes were sold through the "Complete My Album" feature. That means half the people who bought the album on iTunes had previously purchased one of the singles, and clicked through that way to buy the rest of their music.

And though neither Dave or I use "Complete My Album," that's a good sign for consumers, and a nice wake up call for the record industry -- the days of playing a song on the radio to up album sales are over. Digital releases are what sells music, and though "Complete My Album" currently only works on music previously purchased in the iTunes store, Apple could very easily extend that to all music in iTunes -- if you like a song that you've downloaded as a free single from the artist's website, it's just as easy to find music of theirs to buy in iTunes the same way.

We're done with a world where radio airplay determines what sells at the record store. These days, consumers are the ones who tell record makers what they want to buy -- it's already in their iTunes playlists.

Once again, TUAW is pleased to present you with a selection of free songs and videos from around the world. Many of these iTMS items won't be free for long, so grab your copies before the week is up. And don't forget: If you want to buy these on your iPhone or iPod touch, make sure to sign into your account in iTunes before you sync.

Follow the jump for all the free iTunes goodies.

The Australian iTunes Store has become the latest to offer television programming for purchase.

Shoppers will notice that pricing is standard across all shows at $2.99 AUS per episode. There are no season passes available as of this writing, and several American shows, like Lost, Pimp My Ride (we're sorry), Hannah Montana (we're really sorry) and Scrubs (we're indifferent) are available along side Australian shows like Sleek Geek and We Can Be Heroes.

ABC Studios, Disney, MTV, Nine Network and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are represented in iTunes.

[Via MacNN]

With apologies to Carl Sagan, it looks as if the Grand Unilateral Conspiracy to Commit Piracy(tm) (GUTCCP) has been dealt a harsh blow. As Scott posted yesterday, iTunes sales have topped 5 billion songs to date. This, despite the fact that all iPods are officially nothing more than repositories of pirated material. iTunes keeps chugging along, selling tracks at a phenomenal rate. Expect abandoned parrots and eyepatches to be offered at firesale prices if this trend continues.

The big story here isn't the exact number milestone. Rather, it's like the late Senator Everett Dirksen probably never said, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." The story is that the consuming public can and will buy music legitimately when the opportunity presents itself as a sane, easy-to-use alternative. Getting rid of DRM seems to have increased that demand rather than opening the doors to a floodgate of proliferate pirating piranas.

Apple comes under constant pressure to raise media prices and increase per-sale revenue. It looks to me that their current pricing model has been a huge success as-is. Could the current (reportedly $0.70/track) wholesale pricing really be putting the recording industry at a financial disadvantage after 5 billion sales with rock bottom overhead for digital distribution? Let us know in the comments.

When the iTunes Store was first introduced (hey, remember when it was called the iTunes Music Store and all you could buy were DRMed music tracks? Those were the days) I thought people wouldn't spend much money there. Sure, it was pretty and easy to use but people don't want DRM laced music, thought I. Clearly, as with many things in my life, I was totally wrong. Apple just announced that people have downloaded over 5 billion songs from iTunes (notice they say 'downloaded,' and not 'bought.' This number includes all those freebies we list, as well as any promotional freebies Apple hands out with partners). Any way you slice it, that's a lot of songs.

Apple also said that people are renting and downloading over 50,000 movies a day. Not too shabby, given the greater expense and file sizes involved with movie transactions on iTunes.

Thanks, Cameron!

Once again, TUAW is pleased to present you with a selection of free songs and videos from around the world. Many of these iTMS items won't be free for long, so grab your copies before the week is up. And don't forget: If you want to buy these on your iPhone or iPod touch, make sure to sign into your account in iTunes before you sync.

Follow the jump to find this week's list of iTunes freebies.

The performing arts center of the University of Kansas, the Lied Center, today announced a partnership with Apple to distribute 50,000 special Lied Center iTunes cards to people in the Midwest US. Each of the special cards provides free downloads of 20 songs by artists who will be performing at the Lied Center during the 2008-09 season.

The exclusive card, available at the Lied Center Ticket Office, provides a way for the Lied Center to attract new patrons and give existing ones a way to capture a foretaste of the upcoming season. The free music downloads available with the card include artists such as Phillip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and the Turtle Island String Quartet.

You can view the special Lied Center playlist in iTunes by clicking here.

Once again, TUAW is pleased to present you with a selection of free songs and videos from around the world. Many of these iTMS items won't be free for long, so grab your copies before the week is up. And don't forget: If you want to buy these on your iPhone or iPod touch, make sure to sign into your account in iTunes before you sync.

Free item listings follow after the jump.

If you find yourself looking at your Apple TV every Tuesday to learn what new releases Apple and the movie studios have blessed us with, then you might find Apple TV Junkie really useful. That's because Apple TV Junkie posts all of the new releases of High Definition rentals -- along with other important Apple TV news.

In one glance of the page you can find out:

• The $.99 movie rental of the week
• How many HD movies grace the iTunes shelves
  
• Top 10 movie purchases
  
• Top 10 movie rentals
  

So, if you're always looking for the hotest new movie rentals on the Apple TV and iTunes, you can make Apple TV Junkie your first stop.

[via Tekzilla]

If you're an artist and have dreamed about selling through iTunes, TuneCore has a deal for you. For just ten bucks, you can deliver a single to 11 digital stores around the world. Participating stores include the US, Canadian, Japanese, Australian/NZ, and UK/European iTunes stores plus Rhapsody, Napster and a few others.

You keep 100% of the revenue generated and retain all rights to your masters. Your single is hosted at iTunes for one year. (Additional years cost the same $10/year.)

TuneCore automatically issues payments into your account when they're received from each store. The time of receipt varies by store, each has their own policy, which you can read about in TuneCore's FAQ.

You can check into your account at any time and cash out any earnings on demand. Be aware that although it only takes about 6 hours to submit your music to iTunes, on average it takes about 4 weeks for it to actually appear on the iTunes "shelf". This delay can occasionally go as long as 8 weeks, so if you want to sell a Christmas single, you'll probably want to submit it by the end of the summer just to be sure. Update: TuneCore has advised that this new pricing is active as of June 20.

TUAW has previously posted about TuneCore.

When Steve Jobs delivers a keynote or other high-profile presentation, Apple typically posts a video of the event on the web and in iTunes (who else remembers when you would stream these things live? Those were the days).

This week they've given these videos an official home in the iTunes Store. The Apple Keynotes Podcast [link] features three videos so far, the MWSF '07 and '08 keynotes plus the March 6th introduction of the iPhone software road map.

Check back on the evening of Monday, June 9th or Tuesday the 10 to see if the WWDC '08 keynote has been made available.

Just a few short days after the new season started on Adult Swim, the latest episode of The Venture Bros. is now in iTunes for your downloading pleasure. I love this show, and this season will probably be the best yet -- show creators Jackson Publick (a.k.a. Christopher McCullogh) and Doc Hammer (no alias, that's what they call him) seem like they're going to dive full steam ahead into the huge backstory of this series (originally a spoof on the old Johnny Quest cartoons, but lately a play on everything from James Bond to Hunter S. Thompson), and it'll definitely be a wacky, hilarious ride.

Unfortunately, there's no season pass for the series -- maybe Apple is a little leery to give those out considering what happened earlier this year (and let's be honest, as awesome as this show is, it's crazy enough to have been a few episodes away from cancellation since it started -- God bless the folks at Adult Swim for letting it go as long as it has).

If you haven't seen this show yet, the best place to start is probably back in Season 1 (Careers in Science is probably the easiest place to start, for my money), but if you want to follow along in this latest season, the show's just an iTunes URL away.

[via TUAW alum D. Chartier]

It's Black Music month, and Apple is celebrating. Along with the special section of the iTunes Store [link], Apple Stores in seven US cities will play host to live music events. Artists like Tiffany Evans, Malcolm Jamal Warner (yes, Theo), Wyclef Jean and Anthony David will perform at Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Santa Monica and Troy, Michigan Apple Stores. You can get the full schedule of appearances here.

We can only assume that these performances will eventually be available in the iTunes Store. You'll notice that the new flagship store in Boston is missing from the list, but that's because Boston lacks a decent music scene.*

[Via Ars Technica]

*I can make this joke because I went to Berklee. Just simmer down.

UK readers aren't the only ones who can now purchase and rent movies via iTunes, Canadian readers will be happy to note they can get in on the fun as well. Interestingly the viewing period for rentals in Canada also lasts for 48 hours, which leads me to believe that the US window will also increase (though we have no information to confirm that).

The Canadian store has over 1,200 movies to buy, 200 of which you can rent. The pricing is as follows:

• CAN$9.99 to purchase catalog titles
• CAN$14.99 to get recently released movies
• CAN$19.99 to purchase new movies
  
• CAN$3.99 for renting a library title (a dollar more for HD)
  
• CAN$4.99 for new release rental (a dollar more for HD)

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Update: I assumed you all knew I meant 'UK reader's when I said 'Japanese readers' in the first sentence. I blame the overwhelming excitement of this news. The error has been corrected.