Starbucks announced today that they are giving away 1.5 million songs everyday from October 2 to November 7 across its 10,000 branches in the United States, for a total of 50,000,000 by promo’s end.

This is part of the launching of the “Now Playing” arrangement with Apple that allows iPhone or iPod Touch users or those accessing the US iTunes Wifi Store at one of 600 initial Starbucks outlets in New York and Seattle to preview, buy and download the song current playing at the coffee shop as instant gratification. The “Song of The Day” promo will give customers iTunes cards for a complimentary song download for a specific track selected by Starbucks.

The songs will be selected from a wide variety of artists including Bob Dylan, Joss Stone, Dave Matthews, Bebel Gilberto, John Mayer, KT Tunstall, John Legend, Annie Lennox, Joni Mitchell, Keith Urban, Paul McCartney, Sia, Band of Horses, Hilary McRae, Frederico Aubele and Sara Bareilles. Customers have until the end of the year to download their free tracks.

First it was Paul, now John. It seems the Apple Wars are about over, as late Beatle John Lennon’s solo work is made available for commercial download on the iTunes Store, and paving the way for the Beatles’ catalogue to eventually be available on the service.

The long-standing feud between Steve Jobs and the Fab Four stem from the Apple trademark, which both use: Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) vs. Apple Corps the record label. The legal dispute was settled six months ago, and Paul McCartney tested the waters by releasing some of his solo material on iTunes three months later. Now John Lennon’s solo material is on there as well, available in both Fairplay and iTunes Plus formats, plus several old music videos of his.

There’s more. Beginning Aug.28, Ringo Starr’s solo work will also be available on iTunes as well, leaving only George Harrison’s music as the last remaining sticking point (Harrison’s material has been unavailable online ever since), and of course, the collective Beatles library.

The last few major holdout music acts who don’t want their stuff available on the iTunes Store used to be a trio: the Beatles, Radiohead and Led Zeppelin. Now it’s just a duo, since Led Zep has caved and allowed some of their songs on iTunes.

Led Zeppelin, creators of that old sing-along/karaoke classic Stairway to Heaven, enemy of piracy and hater of digital music has sold 200 million analog copies of their albums in the past. But now they’re looking to add to that, so they had a change of heart and put together a specially assembled digital set of their hits for download on Apple’s online music store. The compilation album titled Mothership includes Stairway and Dazed and Confused and a bunch of other hits. The songs were specifically chosen by band members Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, and will be available beginning November 12.

Best to squeeze every drop you can, at their age. Now let’s hope everyone follows suit and climbs the stairway to heaven.

A recently completed survey by the Eagle Research Group found out that 70% of Zune users surveyed are not happy with their players and intend to switch to either an iPod or to an iPhone as soon as their service contract expires.

36% said that had they known Apple was coming out with the iPhone they never would have purchased a Zune. Also of note is that 3% of the survey respondents were either employees or contractors of Microsoft.

Imagine that.

One of the agreements made between Apple Inc and Apple Corps, which is the record label of the Beatles, to prevent bloodshed over the same name is that Apple Inc only dip its feet in waters entirely different from the waters Apple Corps wades, so that the record company, who’s got dibs on the trademark, will not summarily chop off the feet of the computer company when they start dipping them into the Apple Corps pool.

Who can forget that big stink raised by the record label after Apple Inc. started selling music on the then iTunes Music Store, a clear violation of the agreement? Things have cooled off a bit since then and there’s been an uneasy peace in the orchard. A judge ruled last year that things will go well as long as both parties engage in distinctly different businesses. There has even been talk that Beatles music will be sold on the iTunes Store.

Well, looks like the peace might be short-lived if the rumors are true that Apple is getting set to do exactly what it shouldn’t - become a music label itself (let’s see you try to weasel out of this one, Steve).

In the wake of Universal renegotiating the terms of distribution of their music through the iTunes Store, talk has been circulating that Apple is close to becoming precisely what they should not be - a music label - with acts like Jay-Z and Beyonce, if the rumors are to be believed.

Let’s get ready to rumble!