Buying a Johnny Cash tune leads to $10,000 iTunes gift card for Georgian man

John Brownlee ()

Buying a Johnny Cash tune leads to $10,000 iTunes gift card for Georgian maniTunes finally sold its ten billionth song, and as promised, Apple has given the lucky downloader a $10,000 iTunes gift card (or one ten thousandth of a cent for every iTunes song ever sold).

But sorry, guys! It wasn’t you… well, unless your name is Mr. Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia, in which case, congratulations. Sulcer’s magic download was “Guess That’s The Way Things Happen” as sung by Johnny Cash.

I guess that is the way that happens. That lucky bastard!

[via TUAW]

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in iTunes, News |

  • Thom Chrastka

    If you couldn’t make it any better, today is Johnny Cash’s Birthday.

    Nice.

  • John

    I don’t mean to be negative, I like the iTunes store but I probably wouldn’t have accepted the $10,000 gift card. By accepting it, the winner will have to pay income tax on it as you would any other prize you win. Depending on his tax bracket he may owe the IRS $3,000 and will probably never download $3,000 worth of songs… Plus it would be tough to sell the gift card for more than $3,000. Think about it.

  • itskaye

    LOL @ John.

    How I wish I won that one. Congratulations, though.

  • Galen

    @John

    you only have to pay taxes for prizes for money. Since the iTunes card has no cash value and is not redeemable for cash, you would be in the clear.

  • http://www.machoe.com Mac Hoe

    Congrats Louie, I “Guess That’s The Way Things Happen”, Sorry no more naughty, titillating nor explicit app for you! :-)

  • John

    @ Galen, that’s not even close to being true. People that win pizes like cars routinely have to pay income tax on them.

    This is from irs.gov:

    “Prizes and awards in goods or services must be included in your income at their fair market value.”

    http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch12.html#en_US_publink1000172142

    Fair Market Value is $10k…

  • John

    LOL@itskaye, you may download enough songs to where paying $3k to the IRS is still a good deal. To someone that download $100 of songs a year, they would not be happy to have to pay $3k this year. Right or wrong?

  • Arya

    … and he’s not just a man. He’s a grandpa (71yo) >> bit.ly/9P3iHc

    oh my….
    :D