A Lottery? Illegal? What are you smoking?

In order to play a lottery I have to BUY A TICKET. There is no "free entry" - otherwise I'd call every state in the union that runs a lottery and demand my free entries.

And why can't I give a loyal customer a 100% discount on something?

Irrelevant? BZZZZZZZ! Thanks for playing.

The lottery is not legal in a lot of states. The point about buying a ticket is exactly what the OP was referring to.

These "no purchase required" contests are as common as water. I seriously doubt the winner is ever a non-purchaser, though. Especially if you consider numbers. Did Apple receive 5 million free entry forms? If the 'free' entries are tallied manually (probably by a single part-time employee) and the purchases automatically, then the free entries don't have a chance.

Bleh. Buying a song or no, this promo WAS basically a lottery, since you have basically a zillion to one chance of winning. Frankly, it saddens me that apple is only interested in rewarding loyal customers when they can extract out of that customer's sale some free marketing by saying they have sold 100 million songs. Apple gets to seem gracious even while they're really being greedy b*******, whipping people up into a buying frenzy. It's a marketer's wet dream.

Bzzzt. Sorry apple. I'll buy when I want to instead of when you want me to, thanks. You were going to get 100 million without me anyway.

He's right -- it is illegal to run a contest that requires a purchase to play. it sucks, but that's life.

It is common for a company accepting free entries to have a separate prize list for the "no-purchase required" entries. For instance, when McDonald's runs the monopoly contest, there is a 1 million dollar prize for collecting boardwalk and park place. If the winning piece was in the free entry prizes, then purchasing a drink or whatever to try for a piece would be a sham. And vise-versa, if it were only on a product, then free entry would be a sham. Therefore, they have a 1 Million dollar prize for a purchaser and a 1 million dollar prize for a non-purchaser. Just check the "Official Rules," it's in there.

Now in the case of iTunes, an "Entry" was considered for purchasing, or using the "tell a friend" feature. They counted "entries" not downloads. While I don't doubt that they have surpassed 100 million d/l's, The speculation is probably true in that this Kevin character did not have the actual "100 millionth" d/l. However, participation in the contest deems that you agree to the official rules. Since they define "entry" as a d/l or tell a friend, then they can have a counter that counts "downloads." Check it out for yourselves:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/100million/rules.html

Technically, if you don't agree to these terms, you cannot participate in the contest. Every contest is like this. If it was purchase required, then it would be considered gambling, (not just a lottery). Gambling is illegal in several states, and in all states without a specific license. To avoid this, states allow contests as long as no purchase is required. (this and raffles somehow qualify, I'm not entirely sure)

Anyway, hope this clears some things up. I'm not trying to bash anyone, but you all really had an equal chance weather you entered for free or not. THe only viable complaint should be that it was hard to gain a connection around that time, I;m sure it was a lot better thought since it happened on a sunday night and not during a week day or evening when more people are using the internet in general.

Not exactly free. Apple did a big promo for it and gave away a lot of prizes - the 50 iPods alone cost (retail) $15,000.

Yes, they would have reached 100M without you, but how much worse is it that they gave the dude who bought the 100Mth song a laptop, ipod and a bunch of songs?

The odds of winning this contest are significantly higher than winning a lottery. If you bought 5 songs, you basically had 5 chances in 5M, or a 1 in a million chance (since they started the promotion at 95M, and would end it at 100M - if you disregard the bonus you get by knowing approximately what the count is and ignore the free entries). The Power Ball lottery on the other hand was at 80 million to 1 per ticket (quoted from here: http://members.cox.net/mathmistakes/rawdata.htm).

Everyone hates a promotion which doesn't involve them winning.

That's exactly my point - it should not have been run as a CONTEST. If you're going to give prizes to the people who download tunes, it can't be by definition.

Contests are also "random" ... but what kind of contest provides you periodic updates on when they are about to draw the next winner and lets you keep entering so you can attempt to slide into the winning spot? In effect, the "winning numbers" (the 100,000 multiples and the 100,000,000 grand prize) were pre-selected - NOT that they knew in advance WHO would be the winner, but the winning position/ticket numbers were already determined. Then it just became the IP version of musical chairs as folks attempted to land on the pre-selected spot. This was not quite a random thing.

If you wanted to make it a contest, how about one entry per person (ok, email address which isn't quite the same thing) per day and they will conduct a truly random drawing from among all entries received since the last drawing as each threshold was hit? That way it didn't matter who actually downloaded the milestone tune that triggered the next drawing - anyone could truly win, even if it was a 'no purchase required' entry. Yet the incentive would be there for folks to keep buying tunes to get to the next drawing.

First, in some states, its illegal to give anything away it seems (why else do they have those wonderful rules like "Void in AZ and WA and where prohibited by law" fun).

Second, from z10n,
Bleh. Buying a song or no, this promo WAS basically a lottery, since you have basically a zillion to one chance of winning.


Actually, I would think the odds were approx. 5 million to one, since it started at 95mill and went on to 100.

Frankly, it saddens me that apple is only interested in rewarding loyal customers when they can extract out of that customer's sale some free marketing by saying they have sold 100 million songs.

You're right! Apple should NEVER reward loyal customers, because no matter what they do, at some point, it'll leak, the press will get it, and then it will seem like they're taking advantage of the gullibility of their customers. So the only way for Apple to reward loyal customers is to do it in a super-secret fashion, but then no one will know it, and still get berated for not rewarding their loyal customers. h***, if Apple offered upgrade pricing on Tiger, or, even better, offered complete rebates on all previous versions, because they were all 'not-quite done', you'd be complaining because it was just a way to get good press or something.

Apple gets to seem gracious even while they're really being greedy b*******, whipping people up into a buying frenzy. It's a marketer's wet dream.

OMG! I don't believe it! Someone here is actually berating apple because they dare MARKET their product, AND trying to boost sales! Damn greedy b*******! Next thing you know, they'll be charging more than cost for their computers and not giving their OS away for free.

You know, now that I think about it, I think that whole "Free song download a week" is also just some marketing scam to get people in to buy music ("Wow, that sounds cool, maybe I'll buy the whole album").

Bzzzt. Sorry apple. I'll buy when I want to instead of when you want me to, thanks. You were going to get 100 million without me anyway.

Fine. I didn't buy any either (but, then again, once you've bought Air Supply's Greatest Hits, all other so-called 'music' just seems blah).

and beating the odds, what do you think the chances are that the winning song just HAPPENS to be by the same band involved in the big Jaguar promotion?

Hmmmmmmmm?

They'd have 200,000,000 downloads by now if Radiohead were on there. We're rabid!!!

"what do you think the chances are that the winning song just HAPPENS to be by the same band involved in the big Jaguar promotion?"

At worst, 1 in 700,000. Which given we're talking about 5 million songs being sold, isn't actually that unlikely. Given the promotion, it is in fact more likely than average because more people would be buying the promoted songs than the non promoted ones. That's the whole point of promoting them y'know.

One thing I would point out by the way - you can't say that something to do with the ITMS is illegal or not, since the iTMS covers state and country boundaries. What is illegal in (I dunno) Utah may well not be illegal in Kent in the UK. So while what the iTMS was doing may or may not be illegal where you are, that doesn't necessarily mean those rules apply to the iTMS. They will apply to you, which makes it rather dumb of you to join the competition frankly, but they don't apply to the iTMS unless you can show that it's illegal where the iTMS is based. Which of itself might be a trick, since the iTMS seems to be run from multiple places in multiple countries anyway. This is the internet folks, laws work slightly differently here.

As to the all the bitching - it would carry a lot more weight if people had been objecting more before the prize was given out. Now it rather just looks like some people having a tantrum because they didn't get a candy bar.

Kevin...what a lucky b******. =P

"Everyone hates a promotion which doesn't involve them winning."

No I hate promotions because I hate capitalism, mainly because of the outrageous tactics companies will employ. S common tactic was employed here: suckering people into buying by promising them prizes they are unlikely to win. I view such things as dishonest and generally contemptable, but I guess they're part of the game if you're a company. The most ruthless company wins (see microsoft).

But point taken: apple paid a h*** of a lot of money to gain the advertizing that they did. At least there's some satisfaction I have in that.

"contest

n 1: an occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants

lottery
... 1. A scheme for the distribution of prizes by lot or chance; esp., a gaming scheme in which one or more tickets bearing particular numbers draw prizes, and the rest of tickets are blanks."

Direct from Sherlock. This is a contest. Lotteries are random. Just cause you don't like the outcome or don't like how the winners were determined doesn't mean it wasn't a contest. If it was a lottery, they would have said "one of the next 5 million downloads will win at random." The winners were already picked, they would win at 500,000 ENTRY intervals, making the odds 1:100000. If this were a lottery, your usernames would now be in a pot and they'd say, OK we are now going to pick a number between 1 and 5 mil (50 times), and that person who downloaded that song will win.

The main difference is, lotteries and gambling pick winners at random after they enter. Contests, you enter to win a specific prize for accomplishing a specific feat.

it's a lottery, no it's a contest, no it's a lottery. I think at this point we are hearing pointless jargon from people upset that they didn't win. I didn't win anything, and i'm not upset, i guess I have no clue as to why i'm even trying to make an argument for this. Oh well. Apple doesn't owe it to me to give me an iPod for downloading songs, they were just trying to be nice.

If you're a loser, you hate capitalism.

Wow. I didn't even know Hays had Internet access. I drive through there once in a while on I70, and can't imagine there being DSL or Cable.

I wonder if the winning song was downloaded via dialup?

They'd have 200,000,000 downloads by now if Radiohead were on there. We're rabid!!!

You're also idiots, but that's another story. Why is everyone clamoring for radiohead, since those who clamor most likely already have their albums. So who cares? Its not like I'm clamoring for the beatles music, because, geesh, here's a thought, I bought that stuff long, long time ago, back when you just went and bought CDs at a store.

Yes, its all capitalism's fault. Life would be so much better if we lived under communist or fascist regimes.

Sorry to ruin your little anti-establishment views, but capitalism is what spurs growth and innovation. Its what puts food on your table (unless of course you grow your own food). If it weren't for capitalism, we'd be lucky to be running 386 speed computers (if we even had personal computers to begin with).

BTW, you're argument about 'suckering people in' only more shows you hate stupid people, i.e. people stupid enough to be 'suckered' in. If it weren't for the suckers, they wouldn't waste the money on the promotions.

I said it in jest, but I do appreciate your calling me, and all the other Radiohead fans, idiots. Nice.

Well, my girlfriend is from Hays, Kansas and it shocked me to no end that her father had a Cable Modem and a computer and everything. Amazing, but true.

And for those of you who don't know, a girlfriend is a real live woman whose goodies you can play with without paying! Well, you pay, but just not usually in advance with cash.

to be exact, it is the market economy that spurs growth and innovation, not capitalism.

Capitalism is not market economy. Capitalism is the planned economy of the capitalists. In case you missed that in your social sciences class.

[IMG]http://img69.photobucket.com/albums/v210/ghost_flash/cap_i_tal_ism.gif[/IMG]

1. capitalism: An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.

2. market economy: An economy that operates by voluntary exchange in a free market and is not planned or controlled by a central authority; a capitalistic economy.

Not sure where your semantics are trying to drive, but its the capitalists that drive the buying and selling, not just having a market.

I don't think Kevin's that lucky. He's now responsible for paying tax on a prize valued at $13,198:
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:tvTccHqPwRUJ:wdb.apple.com/itunes/100million/+taxes+%2413,198&hl=en

That could work out to about $4000. Ouch, no thanks.