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# Why U2 Released a Free Album on iTunes

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/RahMaeom.m3u8" -->
## Video: Why U2 Released a Free Album on iTunes

[Watch (HLS stream): Why U2 Released a Free Album on iTunes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/RahMaeom.m3u8) (1:26)

![Why U2 Released a Free Album on iTunes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/RahMaeom/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2014-09-17. Bono and crew talk about how the unprecedented deal with Apple on the release of their new album came to light_


---

Jul 27, 2023 5:15 PM UTC

---

## More From This Series

[All Videos](https://time.com/video/)

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### Bono Apologizes For That Whole ‘Free U2 Album’ Thing

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### Beyonce's Secret Album Release Gets Huge Reaction

---


## Transcript

The songs are like, people say they're like your kids, but that's not true. They're actually more like your parents. They tell you what to do. They tell you how to behave. These songs, we worked quite hard on them over the years, and we really didn't want. They really didn't want them to be ignored. [ MUSIC ] What do we really want for these songs? Want to get them to as many people as we can. could we talk somebody into helping us with that? We went to Apple and we said look. We're not interested in free music, we're we think music is you know undervalued. It's a sacrament as far as we're. And, and we said, would you be interested in buying our, our album and then get it to all, you know, 500 million of your i- tunes, accounts?

And, eh, Tim Cook is an unflappable man. Might have flapped a little bit, eh. But not for long. Every iTunes customer gets this album, this incredible album for free. [ APPLAUSE ] [ MUSIC ] It, it, it happened in an instant. It wasn't like armies of people with trucks full of boxes of albums. It was one guy [ MUSIC ] [ INAUDIBLE ] in an office someone could choose gonna, you read it. Okay, boom. And that was it. [ MUSIC ]

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