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Apple Announces Winner of Billion Song Countdown Contest

Apple on Thursday announced that the billionth song purchased from the iTunes Music Store was "Speed of Sound," which was downloaded as part of Coldplay's X&Y album. The winner was Alex Ostrovsky of West Bloomfield, Mich., who scored a 20-inch iMac, 10 60GB iPods and a US$10,000 iTMS gift card. Apple will also set up a scholarship to Juilliard School of Music in his name.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement: "Over one billion songs have now been legally purchased and downloaded around the globe, representing a major force against music piracy and the future of music distribution as we move from CDs to the Internet."

As iPod Observer reported earlier, the iTMS counter flipped from 999,995,000 songs to one billion around 12:38 AM EST on Thursday.


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