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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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