Hackers Rip Off Pepsi/iTunes Promotion

Music lovers are continuing to steal music—this time from the 100-million free song Pepsi/iTunes marketing campaign.

By simply tipping an unopened participating soda bottle, hackers can see in through the bottle to see whether the lid is marked with "try again" or if a winning 10-digit redemption code appears, they can steal the numbers and download the music. Pepsi officials first noticed the problem last week.

To stave off hackers, Pepsi is restricting the number of free songs a consumer could redeem per day to 10 and 200 during the promotional period, which ends Mar. 31, said Pepsi spokesperson Dave DeCecco.

At least one Web site, MacMerc.com, has posted step by step instructions—including an image of how far to tip the soda bottle to see the codes—on how to rip-off the promotion. Almost 18 hours after posting the instructions the site crashed because of the increased amount of hits it received on the instructions, according to the Web site.

Pepsi has no plans to abandon the promotion or alter the packaging to prevent peeping Toms.

"We always put redemption limits in place for promotions like this one," DeCecco said. "We've found that most consumers play by the rules."

Pepsi launched the iTunes promotion, putting codes on bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist in February, to let consumers sample Apple's pay-for-play iTunes system that launched in April. Consumers enter a code at Apple's online iTunes Music Store, www.itunes.com, and choose one song from 400,000 titles. Songs usually cost 99 cents to download.

Dallas-based Tracy Locke Partnership handles.