News

iTunes 24-Hour Movie Rental Limit Hacked, then Fixed

Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 4:25 PM - by

The 24-hour limit on watching Apple's new iTunes movie rentals was briefly hackable. Gizmodo reported early Thursday that simply playing with your system time -- either setting it forward before watching a movie, or backward after watching a movie -- confused iTunes and allowed effectively unlimited watching time for your movies. In a follow up report, the site noted that Apple has now disabled that workaround, restoring the company's 24 hour time limit on watching movies.

Complaints about the 24-hour time limit on watching movie rentals are one of the few criticisms Apple has garnered since announcing the service. Though you have 30 days to watch a movie once you've rented it, customers have only 24 hours to either finish it or rewatch it once that play button has been pushed, and some commentary has been critical of that limit.

Despite those criticisms, though, Apple has otherwise received very good marks for the new movie rental service, including analysis from Shaw Wu of American Technology Research where he said it would revolutionize the movie industry.

With Apple's high profile, hack attempts to break the time limit and any other DRM restrictions on its movie rentals should come as no surprise. Apple's swift response to this first blunt-force approach suggests Apple is watching closely for such efforts.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Jan 18, 2008 5:59 am

Quote
Apple's swift response to this first blunt-force approach suggests Apple is watching closely for such efforts.

Actually, this was SO blunt that I'd suspect that Apple left it there on purpose for some reason - perhaps to see who was mucking with the system or how the info spread.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Jan 18, 2008 8:35 am

Maybe sharing every workaround with the mass public is bad idea. People find these simple workarounds everyday because they are just that, simple and most people can figure it.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:00 am

This just goes to show, when developers throw you a bone SHUT UP about it, otherwise it will get taken away...

We've seen this kind of thing happen at least 3 times with Apple now.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Jan 18, 2008 1:50 pm

Maybe a sign of hope that so many are bad at being a criminal.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Jan 18, 2008 5:34 pm

Oddly enough, my first (and only, so far) movie rental lasted *36* hours, not 24 -- no hacking required or attempted.

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