Say, you know how Steve's keynote on Monday was in Paris? Well, we did a little research, and apparently it wasn't in the Paris in Texas, the one in Illinois, the one in Kentucky, the one in Tennessee, the one in Maine, the one in Arkansas, the one in Iowa, the one in Michigan, the one in Idaho, or even the one in Missouri. It turns out that this Paris is in some whole other country-- one called "France." Go figure. And after a bunch more digging, we found out that this "France" country is in something called "Europe," so in hindsight, it's pretty surprising that a European version of the iTunes Music Store reportedly didn't even get a mention from His Steveness when he was onstage a few days ago.

Of course, the French press weren't going to let him off that easy, and Reuters reports that, when grilled on the subject later, Steve cited ickiness in the negotiations with record labels as the reason for the hold-up, saying "I think we'll do it next year." Well, okay, next year is only three and a half months away-- but The Guardian claims that "record industry sources insist the store is unlikely to appear before next spring." If true, that would make it more like six months, which is a fair chunk of waitage, if you ask us. Worse yet, faithful viewer Tuner Equalizer point out a MacNN article claiming that Steve actually said the iTMS Europe launch is still "at least another ten months" away, although no source is given.

Ten more months? Holy yikes, evidently those European recording industry execs play some serious hardball-- and are seemingly impervious to the effects of the Jobsian Reality Distortion Field. But MacNN has another theory that's worth kicking around a bit. Given that Apple released new iPods the week before the Stevenote, it's not too much of a stretch to assume that Apple expected to make an even bigger music-related announcement last Monday. That announcement never came, as if something squelched it in the intervening week. Well, guess what else happened during that stretch of eight days? That's right, The Beatles' record label got all lawsuity and contract-breachy up in Apple's face. MacNN apparently feels that the alleged additional ten-month wait for the iTMS to go European is the direct result of Apple's upcoming "exhausting new court battle" with Yoko, Paul, George's estate, and Ringo.

Of course, MacNN is probably completely off-base when it blames The Beatles/Apple Records for the iTMS delay. For one thing, we can't really see a direct correlation between Beatleriffic litigation and the iTMS, given that the vast majority of Beatles recordings aren't even available in the U.S. version of the iTMS in the first place-- or from any other legitimate digital download service, for that matter. Secondly, if the idea is that Apple is now holding off on expanding any aspect of its music business because the courts might rule that it's in breach of contract, that's silly; Apple would do what any company would do, which is proceed normally unless Apple Records were to secure an injunction preventing them from doing so pending the case ruling. Heck, even if Apple loses, it's just going to wind up chucking another $35 million or so at Apple Records. It wouldn't affect the iTMS in the least.

Thirdly, as anyone who tunes into this show with any regularity already knows, it's actually All Motorola's Fault™.