Perhaps you are among those ecstatic Apple after the company has announced on Tuesday that it is giving away free copy of the U2 album to its millions of iTunes customers.

And according to reports, Apple did not get the album for free! The company had to pay around $100 million for this give away to Apple users. The money really means a huge investment for the company. As of this writing, iTunes has around 500 million customers.

In a report published in the New York Times written by Sen Sisario: "To release U2's album free, Apple paid the band and Universal an unspecified fee as a blanket royaly and committed to a marketing campaign for the band worth $100 million, according to several people briefed on the deal. The marketing will include a global television campaign, the first piece of which was a commercial that was shown during the event."

There were claims that Apple is bringing in around $35,000 per second, which means it can certainly afford the payment if offered to the band.

The said U2 album was automatically downloaded to the millions of Apple device owners-including those who are not fans of the U2 band. Some ended up happy, while some ended up disappointed as they said they did not grant permission for Apple to automatically download the album into their phones, computers or tablets. Some have aired their grievances over a number of social networking sites.

Perhaps, this what prompted the USA Today to ask about the reason behind Apple's decision to give away the U2 album for free when the Apple users are not asking for it.

It could be a marketing strategy that could bring in millions to both Apple and U2-but only them actually know the answer behind this bold step.