iPod Accessing the artist and album names off a friends iPod

Hi,

I was wondering if it was possible view the artist and album names off a friends iPod? I have no interest in downloading the files, just viewing (and possibly saving) the folder names.

If possible I would like to do this so it would work with any of my friends iPods so I can check out what they are listening to (they have no desire to do last.fm or w.e.) without them having to make any changes on their devices.

Weird question, I know.

Thoughts? Links that might point me in the right direction?

Everything I look at says they would have to have disk mode activated. Is there anyway to view the folder names without doing this?

hmm... maybe.

Maybe I will get a bit more specific about what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to generate some statistics from a group of friends on what they are listening to. So I was hoping to take their perhaps plug in their iPod's and create a program to enter the albums and artists into a spread sheet.

I'm not sure if the going through iTunes to do this is the easiest approach or not.