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Apple launched its iTunes Music Store in Japan last month without Sony on-board and promptly sold more than one million songs in four days. Sony appears to have decided that taking its share of iTunes sales is more important than the prospect of further boosting Apple's leadership of both the download and portable player markets.

'We are negotiating with Apple over the download business and hope to expand our customer base to iPod users,' said Yasuhi Ide, a spokesman for Sony Music Entertainment.

As before, pricing appears to be the major sticking point in negotiations.

The report in Japan's top-selling newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, suggests that the 25,000 songs that will initially become available may not be sold through iTunes but via some kind of joint operation.

Music on the move: music downloads and DRM