iTunes Japan to launch in 2005?

However, it seems that negotiations with Japanese record labels, especially those ones representing the major global record labels in the country, have been difficult. The labels are rather unwilling to participate with Apple's upcoming Japanese service, as the paper quotes that iTunes Japan aims to have a music catalog of mere 100,000 tracks -- compared to almost a million available in most markets where iTunes is available. Apparently the music catalog's focus would be on Japanese music.

Source: Reuters