711 Apple has announced that the iTunes Music Store is now open for business in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, four countries that most Americans mistakenly think of as one country.

Apple® today launched four new iTunes® Music Stores in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland featuring songs from all four major music companies and over 1,000 independent record labels. The four new iTunes Music Stores offer the same innovative features, breakthrough pricing and seamless integration with iPod® that have made iTunes the number one online music service in the world. Since its launch just two years ago, the iTunes Music Store has extended its reach to more than 70 percent of the global music market with stores in 19 countries and more than 400 million songs purchased and downloaded worldwide.

In addition, lucky citizens in Switzerland finally get something for their trouble:

In conjunction with the iTunes Music Store launch in Switzerland, Apple and UBS today announced a promotion to give every Swiss citizen a free song* on the iTunes Music Store as part of their new "UBS Generation" and "UBS Campus" packages. UBS is offering song cards for music downloads in all of their branches, which can be used instead of a credit card to purchase tracks from the iTunes Music Store.

I managed to catch up with Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Applications, who gave me the exclusive, inner-circle interview on what this means to the world of digital music.

Eddy: "The iTunes Music Store has revolutionized the way we discover and enjoy music, and is now selling more than half a billion songs per year. With iTunes Music Stores now in 19 countries, music fans around the world can enjoy the number one online music service in the world."

Hard hitting and inflammatory stuff, there, Eddy. Thank you for your time.

Bill's been using Macs since the late 80s. When he's not making smartass remarks to amuse Kirk Hiner, he enjoys fighting for the user.

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