Yesterday, Apple announced that iTunes customers purchased over 1 million videos since videos debuted about 20 days ago on October 12, 2005.

Customers can choose from over 2,000 music videos, Pixar short films and hit TV shows for just $1.99. Top downloads include music videos from Michael Jackson, Fatboy Slim and Kanye West; Pixar’s “For the Birds” and “Boundin’”; and episodes of ABC’s hit TV shows “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives.”

I’ve personally bought several videos, mostly Lost episodes. Music videos are nice, but there are only a handful I’d actually want to watch repeatedly. TV shows are great, though. The picture quality could be tweaked a little, so viewing on a Mac was a little better…

Meanwhile, Sprint Nextel has launched the first US music download service aimed at mobile phone users.

iTunes doesn’t have this functionality…but I know of one IT company based in Hong Kong (just down the street from my office) developing a mobile platform that searches for MP3s and then allows users to download these songs to their mobile phone…they earn money from the download (it works quite well)…interestingly enough the company is listed on the Hong Kong Exchange…in my book this is illegal…and they should be delisted for developing this functionality….

Along the same lines, I read an article from Beijing News reporting R2G’s suit against CDC, Hurray and Any8 for music copyright infringements:

Beijing based online intellectual property piracy monitor R2G will sue wireless value added service providers CDC Corporation (Nasdaq: CHINA), Hurray (Nasdaq: HRAY), Any8 and Altratek for mobile music copyright infringement, R2G told The Beijing News on Monday…

I understand “China is a developing country…blah blah blah” but this does not give companies, especially listed companies, the right to profit from illegal downloads…if fact, I strongly believe after several warnings, if a public company continues to engage in this sort of business they should be delisted…period!

My view is if you aren’t creative enough to come up with unique content or smart enough to structure deals to distribute exclusive content that people are willing to pay for…then there really is no long term business model for your platform…how many “distribution” sites can the market support?

Here is a hint…look at the broadband market in the US…its consolidating…fast! Om Malik from Business 2.0 has a lot of intelligent things to say about this, click here to read more