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iTunes 5 rumors created a buzz in the Mac web community, tempting users with possible new iTunes features. Now... these rumors are labeled as "unverified" which is a skip and a hop away from "speculation"... but they do introduce us to a new concept to the world of legitimate music download services: iTunes Listener Loans

What if I don't want to just listen to 30 seconds of a song? What if I want to listen to the whole thing? Might some users launch one of the Mac P2P options? Possibly. But what if the Apple iTunes Music Store offered full-length songs for limited use?

Users could download a full song which could be limited by either the number of plays or a time limit. Beyond these set limits, the songs would refuse to play. Presumably, the iTunes music store would only allow each user to "loan" a song or album once, and "loaned" songs would not be burnable or transferable to the iPod.

Well, the wheels immediately start turning once people hear this... what about WireTap or Audio Hijack? These utilities allow you to save exact copies of any audio playing from your Mac. Or - users could simply just record off the Audio-Out on your Mac.

Well, one option is to severely restrict the quality on the samples... a possibility... but this limits the experience for the end user.

A far more interesting option comes if you look back at an early forgotten rumor about iTunes 5.

This rumor places Apple Computer together with a small company called Verance.

Verance has some very interesting technology that Apple is rumored to have licensed. The technology allows Verance to introduce Digital Audio Watermarks which are said to be "inaudible yet identifiable" tags into audio files -- which survive manipulation and compression (such as AAC or MP3).

The implication? Well... it seems it could be possible for Apple to offer watermarked songs for loan to end users. Ripped and reencoded songs would be recognizable by iTunes through digital watermarks.

Now... the fatal flaw in the system is that the end application has to be aware of these watermarks in order to enforce any restrictions... but Apple could embed these tools into both iTunes and the iPod. While this means you could theoretically play these ripped songs in 3rd party applications or MP3 players... you would essentially be locking yourself out of using the iTunes software or Apple's iPod.

Speculation? Yes. Interesting? Yes. Likely? Not sure... we'll see on Thursday, October 16th.

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