Chinese authorities appear to have blocked access to Apple"s U.S. iTunes Music Store, following the release of the 20-song "Songs for Tibet - The Art of Peace" collection Wednesday. Users in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen confirmed that since as early as Wednesday morning, Beijing time, they began receiving "unknown error" messages when they tried unsuccessfully to access the store. Although Apple does not operate an iTunes Store in China, users may download free content such as podcasts, and those with U.S. credit cards may buy content from the U.S. store.
Although Amazon.com remains available in China, its pages for both the "Songs for Tibet" CD and download page fail to load, returning: "The connection was reset. The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading," the most common error message received for blocked sites.