iTunes gifts Blighty 12 freebies of Christmas

iTunes (UK) has a Christmas present for you - 12 of them, to be exact. Unfortunately, as will be true for most gifts you'll receive this holiday season, you don't get to choose what you'll receive. The 12 Days of Christmas promo runs from December 26 through January 6, and it will bestow upon European iTunesters a daily tune, …

[The Cube]

Hand me the jar of wasps instead

I don't even want to imagine the horrible tripe they have negotiated to give away free. This will be the same turgid spoor that the record companies push onto radio playlists to annoy people. As for the sponsors "The Sun for Snobs, Crapital FM ("London's No.1 SHit Music Station"), Fart FM ("kill me now"), Ticketmaster, and Oh-Poo". What a gang banging shagfest of PR bullshit this must have been....

[Mark_W]

@The Cube

...in your opinion.

However, it takes all kinds to make the world go round. Thankfully not all like you.

[Ted Treen]

It may be a difficult concept for you...

but the world does NOT revolve around you, so whatever is offered will undoubtedly not be tailored exclusively to your taste - unless of course, they offer Carly Simon's "You're so vain" which could be deemed most apposite.

Still, I wish you "Merry Christmas", or to tailor it to your attitudes, "Bah! Humbug".

[Dennis Healey]

@ The Cube

Good to see the spirit of Christmas and goodwill to all is at hand. Merry Christmas !

[Steve Evans]

Big artists...

...but I bet the tracks are the album filler kinda tripe.

[Alastair 7]

@The Cube

It's free. Don't want it? Don't get it.

You sound like you're a lot of fun down the pub.

[Gary F 1]

Haters

Dennis, you forgot that this is The Register.

If Google or Palm had been offering exactly the same things for free, the nerdcore here would be wetting themselves with glee and declaring it the best thing ever.

Apple could cure all cancer and the haters here would just complain about the cost and about Apple contributing to the over-population problem.

[JasonW]

@Dennis Healey

The Cube has hit it on the nail - it's not exactly a compelling freebie...

"last year's "biggest star performers" included Katy Perry"

dear me...

"Lily Allen"

she seems to be the new Rex Harrison, talking her way through her "songs" - if I want "spoken word" I'll buy an audiobook

"and The Ting Tings"

:-s

[The Fuzzy Wotnot]

Shame!

Sounds reasonable for people that like their feeble pop dross, you might find something you have never thought of trying before I suppose. However for myself, I can't see them handing out free MP3s from Lamb or God, Trigger the Bloodshed or Suicide Silence!

[ShaggyDoggy]

Huh ?

"gifts" surely you meaN "gives" dood yo !!

[Gerard Krupa]

Not really free...

...and installing iTunes is a price I'm just not willing to pay

[Gary F 1]

Hilarious

"...and installing iTunes is a price I'm just not willing to pay"

And yet, you happily choose to have Windows on you machine.

Priceless.

[Barry Lane 1]

Gift horses, mouths, etc

A couple of last year's freebies were pretty all right, thank you very much. iTunes has introduced me to several artists I would otherwise have overlooked (the brilliant Wallis Bird, Imogen Heap, Hundred Reasons...), so feeble remarks about an iTunes installation being too much to pay and not offering thrash metal by bands of small boys who squeal about death and, er, more death, are probably not on offer this festive yulething. And Huzzah! to that.

Personally, I couldn't give a flying crap about DRM - don't have an MP3 player and I actually pay for the stuff I listen to - so iTunes works a treat from where I sit.

12 tracks/videos/TV shows for which one doesn't have to pay. Hmmm, not a lot not to like with regard to that one.

Happy Xmas, yer miserable buggers!

* Angelic Steve because, well, it's Christmas innit!

[Big-nosed Pengie]

"Gifts"

"Gifts" has become the new "leveraged".

Bloody illiterates.

[Moss Icely Spaceport]

@The Cube

Well said that man.

[kissingthecarpet]

"The Sun for snobs"

Ha Ha Ha

@Big nose Pengie - you're 100% right there

[JayB]

iTunes and Windows

Frankly I'm with Master Krupa here. Gary F1 go away you sad, strange little Fanboi. Windows is an OS, and your Mac has an OS, Slush Kitty or something. ITunes is a crappy bit of equally invasive software. Just because someone doesn't like the iTunes thing doesn't mean that the entire El Reg has a personal yen just to offend your easily offendable sensitivities!!!!

Personally I think this "12 Days of Christmas" thing is probably well suited to it's target audience and will probably do very well. I just thank a diety I don't believe in that I am NOT in that target audience.

[Ted Treen]

Oh dear...

"Slush Kitty"? - obviously the same level of intellect which leads NuLab into name-calling when they run out of (if they ever had any) reasoned discourse.

"Easily offendable"? - " I think you mean "Easily offended", old lad - one presumes English is not your first language.

"Thank a diety"? - You're grateful to someone eschewing chocolate, carbs., etc?

We do love our little self, don't we? Never mind, you'll see things differently when you grow up a bit and start to talk with the big boys & girls...

[Shady]

To the melody of....

On the twelfth day of Christmas,

Steve Jobs gave to me.

Some shit MP3's

And they weren't even DRM free....

[Andrew Newstead]

An observation...

Given that the purpose of the promo is to attract attention, looking at the comments here I would suggest it has succeeded.

[Anonymous Coward]

OS Arguments

I think there must be a direct link between arguing about "my OS is better than your OS" or "ooooh, Windows is better than OSX" and being a middle aged virgin.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: Oh dear...

I appear to have walked into the middle of a lolly-slinging fight. Please play nicely, girls.

[JayB]

Oops... poor English acknowledged

Whoops... ok.. note to self, spell check.

My bad.

My opinion and sentiment however still stands regardless of Ted's kindly supplied advice.

Oddly enough, it is possible to dislike something intensely whilst actually acknowledging that it's rather suitable for it's purpose.

Here's a question - we're all merrily complaining about iTunes supplying this but how is it different from BBC highlighting pop acts, newspapers giving away free CDs and a million and one other giveaways? We may hate them, but for others they're effective.

I still don't like iTunes however and will never have it on any system owned or run by me. It's called " a matter of principle".

[Ted Treen]

Some good points Jay...

But with most 'giveaways', I'll either collect them if I want them, or ignore them If I don't. I've never felt the need to rail against them or to be outraged** - in fact I've never seen the point of anything other than supreme indifference in such cases.

**Unless it's something dangerous/blatantly unacceptable such as flick-knives to 12 year olds or something of that ilk.

However, I freely (and happily) accept that one size doesn't fit all.

As the Froggies would put it "One man's fish is another man's poisson"...

[Anonymous Coward]

12 free songs

That's nothing, I easly downloaded three times that last night.... :-P

[D@v3]

would now be a good time....

to mention the plan to get Rage Against The Machine to Christmas number 1.

Simple idea, everybody who hates X factor and other pop nonsense, downloads

"Killing in the name of"

by afore mentioned band AFTER the 13th December so that it gets included in the download chart for the week leading up to Christmas.

Come on, you know you want to.

[David 160]

Sorry iTunes...

....here in the states, Amazon MP3 beat you to it on December 1st. 25 days of songs, leading up to Christmas. Not to mention DRM free......