I noticed the other day that an album I'd bought a few years ago had an "online only" bonus track. Unusually, nobody had put it on YouTube (or else it had been taken down), and it looked as if the only way to obtain it was through the iTunes Store. Except that the track didn't show up when I looked at the album in the iTunes Store.

It turned out to be not only an Apple exclusive but a US-only Apple exclusive; I set my region to 'United States' and there it was. But, having an Apple ID associated with a British credit card, there was no way I could buy it.

Or was there? A 'helpful' Web site (which I won't name for reasons that will become obvious) offered to sell me a $-denominated Apple gift card and provided detailed instructions on how to access the US iTunes storefront from elsewhere in the world. Detailed instructions which didn't work.

So here I am, all dressed up and nowhere to go with my $2 gift card(!) for the US iTunes Store. I would offer it to anyone who could download the track for me & send me the MP3 (and delete it from their own machine, of course!)... but I suspect that anything downloaded from the iTunes Store is going to be DRM'd out the wazoo, and tied to the Apple ID with which it was downloaded.

I think I'm just going to have to chalk it up to experience, and keep looking for bootlegs of the track in question. Unless anyone has any better ideas...?