The semi-not-really-legal way to purchase from iTunes: Taobao

Sure, here in China there's legitimate download sites and there's mp3.baidu.com, but if you've ever wanted to straggle the fence between legality and piracy, there's a way to do that too. Taobao has long been harboring many iTunes store gift voucher hackers, selling $200 USD (1,368 RMB) gift cards for as little as 18RMB.

From Outdustry:

The owner of the Taobao shop told us frankly that the gift card codes are created using key-generators. He also said that he paid money to use the hackers’ service.

Half a year ago, when they started the business, the price was around 320 RMB for 200 USD card, then more people went into this business and the price went all the way down to 18 RMB per card, “but we make more money as the amount of customers is growing rapidly.”

The non-iPhone owners among us can't really see the point - if it's already illegal, why bother paying anything for it? But if you've always wanted that paid app and never bothered to install yellowsn0w or some other jailbreaking equipment, we guess now you've got the option of using pirated iTunes credits.