iTunes movie rental hack keeps the good times playing
Posted On Friday, January 18, 2008 at at 1/18/2008 11:21:00 PM by null
Image courtesy of Gizmodo
Apple's terms for iTunes Store movie rentals seem pretty reasonable. Customers have 30 days to begin watching the film they rent, then 24 hours to finish it after first clicking play. Naturally, some users out there always want more, and a simple new hack involving a little time travel can help extend the time you can keep and watch iTunes Store movie rentals.
As TUAW found, all users need to do is push their system clock into the future to trick iTunes into extending the time one has with a rented movie. Gizmodo later confirmed that setting one's clock ahead by at least a year, clicking play on a movie, then coming back to the present will stretch out the time one actually has to watch it, skirting both the 30-day and 24-hour limits.
It's pretty surprising that such a simple hack can defeat this terms system so easily, especially considering how obsessed the studios are with protecting their content. After Steve Jobs' open letter on music, we learned that Apple has two weeks to plug any flaws discovered that allow customers to get around music DRM, otherwise the music labels have the right to pull out of the store. You can bet your bottom dollar that the movie studios have a same or at least similar contract with Apple, so we wouldn't recommend trying to build a new movie collection with this a trick like this. Look for the hack to get plugged soon.