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Apple's 500 Million Songs
Paul H. writes "Apple is giving away an iPod Mini and a 50-song gift card to whomever purchases every 100,000th song on iTunes, until they reach 500 million downloads. The person who downloads the 500 millionth song wins 10 free iPods, a gold 10,000-song gift card, and 10 additional 50-song gift cards for the iPods. To top it off, the winner gets 4 first row Coldplay tickets with back-stage passes."
Currently at 478 million downloads, the max amount of iPods would be about 230 (10 + 22million / 100K), but your point is valid.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It's convenient. I can go surfing around in iTMS, find a song I want, and be listening to it 20 seconds later. All at three in the morning from the comfort of my home.
With CDs the best case is that I order it from amazon.com and get it a few days later, along with 10 other tracks on the disc which I may or may not want. Worst case, I have to drive to the store and stand in line to pay.
iTMS wins the convenience and simplicity battle hands-down.
I never resell CDs, they just aren't worth enough to make it worth the bother. With iTMS tracks I don't waste space on storing physical media I never use.
No, it'd just be following the law. In the United States, giveaways like this have to be on a "no purchase necessary" basis so as not to run afoul of federal and state gambling laws.
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. - but you still need itunes .
How To Enter. You will automatically be entered into the Promotion by: 1) downloading a song from iTunes (any free downloads will be deemed an ineligible entry); or 2) a free alternative means of sending an e-mail to Apple at itunes500@apple.com via the iTunes "Tell a Friend" feature (a song download or Tell a Friend e-mail will be deemed an "Entry(ies)"). The "Tell a Friend" feature can be easily accessed at iTunes by selecting a song, and clicking the "Tell a Friend" link that is displayed for that song. One Entry will be automatically submitted for each song downloaded or Tell a Friend e-mail sent. The Promotion begins following the downloading of the 480,000,000th iTunes song, and ends with the downloading of the 500 millionth Entry ("End Date"). Only Entries submitted in this time period will be accepted.
They were only ever possibly technically legal in Russia (those madatory licensing laws don't give the rights for world wide distribution, as the Russian rights holders for the works do not hold the copy rights for the works in other jurisdictions), and even there, Moscow Police & the City Prosecutor have concluded that they are violating Russian law, as those same mandatory licensing laws are not held to cover online distribution. However, as it is a civil matter, the individual rights holders are going to need to file suit against the company.
In short, I have very little desire to give my credit card information to a Russian outfit that is violating both international and local Russian laws.