The track costs £1.49 on other major online sites which have agreed to donate their profits to relief efforts in Africa. Apple sells individual tracks at 79p but has refused to raise its price for the charity song.

Because of iTunes’s dominance of the online market, Apple’s refusal to sell the track could reduce the revenues raised through online sales by 70 per cent. Millions of iPod owners will not be able to play the track over the Christmas period.

Apple’s iTunes sells 150 million songs worldwide. It told the Band Aid Trust that it was not willing to make an exception and sell the song, which is expected to raise £10 million for relief efforts in Africa, at a higher price.

Universal Music, the record company which is releasing the single, is still keen to come to an agreement with Apple. The song cannot be made available for 79p because Band Aid must maximise the cash raised from each sale.

Band Aid sources said that it was “very disappointing” that the American giant would not agree to bend its sales policy when artists, retailers and the Treasury had done all they could to maximise the money raised.

Sites including HMV, Microsoft, Napster, MTV and MyCokeMusic have agreed to sell the song. Nearly 10,000 fans have already downloaded the Band Aid single and video which have been made avail-able online a week before one million copies of the CD are released in stores on Monday.

A download package of the new song and the 1984 original is also being sold for £1.99 while the video of the song, which features Keane, Chris Martin and Dido, has been priced at £2.50.

Band Aid 20 has become the victim of a fierce pre-Christmas battle between retailers in the fast-expanding online music market. Apple secured a 70 per cent market share through iTunes by undercutting competitor sites, which sell songs for about £1.

Apple is able to absorb reduced profit margins on individual downloads because the site drives sales of its iPod portable music players. Five million iPod players have now been sold. Despite its lower prices, iTunes is still facing an Office of Fair Trading investigation into why it charges 79p in Britain to download a track but only 68p in France and Germany.

Universal was able to secure online Band Aid deals with MyCoke Music, Tiscali, NTL, Wanadoo, Virgin Mega-store, MSN, Virgin.net, MTV, HMV and Napster, as well as an official site, www.buybandaid20.com.

Barney Wragg, vice-president of Universal Music eLabs, said: “Making this track available as a download so fast, through so many retailers, was a real logistical challenge, but everyone did their best — in fact, more than their best.” The song contains encoded digital rights management software to ensure that it cannot be copied across the internet.

John Kennedy, a Band Aid trustee with Bob Geldof, said that the money raised would not be wasted. “Twenty years ago frankly we didn’t know what to do and we had to learn but we have become pretty streamlined and efficient at this,” he said.

“The money will be spent quickly. It won’t sit in a bank for months, and it will go on emergency development and sustainable, long-term projects.” Relief efforts in the Darfur region of Sudan will also benefit from the Band Aid song.

The first simulcast play of the Band Aid video last Thurday was watched by 20 million viewers. Apple declined to make a statement about its Band Aid decision.

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