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Steve Jobs shows up in London for "Biggest Music Announcement Ever" - iTunes for Europe

An "invite only" audience of raddled old hacks showed up this morning. They were treated to high security. Why? Who was coming.

Yes, it turned out to be Steve Jobs himself, to tell us why we should buy iTunes tunes, rather than rip CDs illegally.

That's it. The full sermon, about how piracy is stealing. "We aren't competing with Virgin, and the rest; we're competing with piracy," he said. "CD burning is getting less important; so we're focused on the new copyright. You can put this on an unlimited number of iPods."

Mobile IT takes over. The new iTunes shop launches as soon as Steve finishes his presentation, in the UK, France and Germany. This accounts for a huge proportion of the world's music buyers. Prices will be 99 "Euro-cents" per song" said Jobs.

DRM is a big feature. You can authorise and de-authorise music on a computer "These are the gold standard of personal use rights in the online business," he said.