Buying from the US iTunes Store, but live in the UK

[siritalks]

Is it possible to download TV Shows from the US iTunes Store, when I reside in the UK?

I'm really wanting to download new episodes of shows such as The Office, Hung, Californication etc but they aren't available in the UK.

Is there a legal way to do it?

Or a kinda legal way to do it at least.

[preyan]

Originally Posted by siritalks

Is it possible to download TV Shows from the US iTunes Store, when I reside in the UK?

I'm really wanting to download new episodes of shows such as The Office, Hung, Californication etc but they aren't available in the UK.

Is there a legal way to do it?

Or a kinda legal way to do it at least.

No...and yes
No, you can't download from any other store if you have a UK account. There is a work around though...

Create new email addy
Create new apple ID with new email addy. Do this via the website and ensure that the country selected at the top, when creating your new account, is the USA
Get any hotel address in the USA and use that as your address
Never enter credit card details when creating your account
Once account created, access iTunes with new email address/Apple ID
Buy a voucher from a digital retailer with no affiliation to Apple e.g. www.wildtwig.com
Load voucher in iTunes US account by selecting Redeem Voucher. Again, never enter credit card info

Voila!!!

[linds15]

im in canada and i have my cc setup with my us itunes account, i dont know how legit is is but google will give you the steps on how too. not 100% sure if it would work from uk though, i dont see why not

[jimN]

It works. Use the voucher method as described.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by siritalks

Is it possible to download TV Shows from the US iTunes Store, when I reside in the UK?

I'm really wanting to download new episodes of shows such as The Office, Hung, Californication etc but they aren't available in the UK.

Is there a legal way to do it?

Or a kinda legal way to do it at least.

Illegal but we're forced to do it (some titles aren't at all accessible in non-US stores; some devs - e.g., Electronic Arts - only offer deep discounts in the US store but not in other ones etc). Don't tell Apple you're doing it to avoid the deletion of the account - see the posts at http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=15938899

[cyclotron451]

I do the same, buy from UK store but live in another EU country.
My AppleTV's are set as location/time/store = "UK" and diagnostics aren't sent to Apple.
I tend to rent/buy just 720p movies from the 'wrong' iTunes store as I think Apple try and cache the movie in a server close to your 'wrong' domain. An HD movie can therefore take quite a long time to d/l as it's being managed in an intelligent way - but unfortunately wrongly intelligent maybe.

A shipping service like bundlebox - virtual US postal address - has allowed me to actually buy things from US Apple, I suppose I should go further and use them to help in globalising our data. I don't think remote use of iTunes is illegal, we are prepared and willing to pay for these entertainment services, and there are swedish/russian alternatives - without DRM or limitations - that don't require payment. I'd rather pay Apple for my entertainment, but if the industry makes it impossible for the user to access what the user wants. then you've lost the hearts and minds of your customers!

For now, it seems like a tiny percent of the SPJ AppleTV 'hobby' users are 'virtual', and this is surely known to Apple.
If my AppleTV's actually stop working, due to out-of-area countermeasures, then a reasonably secure encrypted VPN for a fiver a month would give a UK or stateside virtual IP address.
I think that a court of justice recently ruled that there cannot be blocks imposed on national programming being received in another nation - with the freedom of movement of people and the trend to a single digital market - this idea will need further discussions for the worldwide point of view (the judgement was based on a UK pub watching UK Premier league matches via a paid Greek satellite terminal - the pub was declared not guilty of UK copyright infringement) Hence there are some shades of grey in this discussion!

[YanniDepp]

I've just posted a big reply on this topic in another thread.

Here's the tl;dr version:

You obviously want this media and you're willing to pay for it, but they've only made it available in certain countries (so they can sell the 'first broadcast' rights to Sky for loads of money in the future, no doubt).

I've been in that situation before, and I don't see why I should jump through (legally dubious, slightly fraudulent) loopholes to give money to companies that obviously don't want it, to 'buy' files that I apparently have no right to buy, and could be taken away from me at any time if and when Apple close my US iTunes account.

Remember, unlike music, TV shows and films on iTunes are still protected by DRM. If they cancel your account, you can't authorise a computer, iPhone, iPod, iPad or Apple TV in the future, so you lose everything you've bought.

I don't want to flat-out advocate/admit piracy, I just think the way our media companies work is ridiculous. They'd make a lot of money if they released something worldwide, at the same time, for a decent price. For a prime example, look at the release of Valve games (in particular Portal 2) through Steam. Look at Apple releasing OS X Lion and Mountain Lion through the App Store.