Shopping at the iTunes Music Store

At the iTunes Music Store, you can search for, browse, audition, and buy music, music videos, TV shows, and more. Wander the store's virtual aisles or search for specific items. Check out 30-second clips of your finds. Buy entire albums, or just the songs you want. iTunes downloads your purchases into your music library, from which you can add them to playlists, burn them to CDs, and transfer them to an iPod.

If you've experimented with music-swapping services, you'll find the iTunes Music Store easier to use and much more reliable. And you'll be able to take off that eye patch, since you won't be pirating from your favorite artists.

You can use the music store with any kind of Internet connection, but a high-speed connectionfor example, a cable modem or DSL lineworks best. Music takes a long time to download over a slow modem connectionand videos take even longer.

Before you can buy music, you must set up an account by providing billing information and creating a password. Once that's done, you can buy songs and albums with a couple of mouse clicks.

The music you buy is stored in AAC format and is tied to your account in ways that guard against the piracy that pervades the MP3 scene. And yet you still have plenty of freedom to burn CDs and move your music between computers.

Let's go shopping.

Getting Set Up: Signing In

Step 1.	Step into the Store
Step 2.	Sign In To sign in, click the Sign In button in the upper-right corner of the store, then complete the dialog box below.

The Music Store at a Glance

Getting Around in the Store

The navigation bar changes as you move within the store; click the buttons to jump to areas that relate to what's on your screen.