The iTunes Music Store is the current leader in an increasingly crowded market. In addition to iTunes, MusicMatch and the new Napster, there are half a dozen other contenders, with more on the way, including new music stores from Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola.

Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, if you live outside the United States, your options are severely limited. So far, the legal download deals with major labels have been restricted to specific regions.

In short: it's about time for Apple to launch the iTunes Music Store worldwide. This has not happened yet for a variety of reasons, including the complicated web of legal contracts that have to be untangled before music can be offered for sale online to any customer, anywhere in the world.

Like most Canadian Mac users, I would be delighted to see this feature launched today at MacWorld. It would be great to see sections of the store devoted to music from specific countries, including the UK, Germany, France, Japan and Canada.

If the Canadian store launches today, I'll be interested to see if the focus extends beyond our most successful exports (e.g. Barenaked Ladies, Shania Twain, Celine Dion) to embrace lesser known Canadian icons like Stan Rogers and Stompin' Tom Connors.

I have a gift certificate for the iTunes Music Store, and I'm ready to use it. All I need is access from Canada.

Apple? Are you ready?