Okay, we know it ended four months ago and most of you probably have an attention span that lasts about twenty-two minutes (or thirty if you count the commercials), but do you happen to remember the Pepsi iTunes giveaway? C'mon, sure you do: one in three bottles contained a special code that you could type in online to receive a free song from the iTunes Music Store. The promo was launched at the Superbowl and ran until the end of March, even though the bottles with the yellow caps didn't even start showing up in some markets until a week or two before the promotion officially ended.

Indeed, Pepsi was so hamhanded about the way it ran the promotion that, of the 100 million songs to be given away, ridiculously few were ever collected, which is largely what nuked Apple's chances of hitting its "100 million songs downloaded in the iTMS's first year" goal. Heck, we still get the occasional message from a faithful viewer telling us he's just spotted a batch of yellow-capped Pepsi bottles being loaded into a minimart cooler somewhere (way to go, Pepsi-- seven months late but moving fast), so maybe the whole affair isn't as far off in the past as we thought.

So that promo had the potential to be a huge boost for Apple's music initiative, and Pepsi totally botched the whole thing, which led to a lot of grumbling from people within the Apple community who insisted that they would have handled things better. Well, guess what? Now you can finally get up and prove it: faithful viewer Chris Spicer notes that Apple now offers volume discounts on iTMS songs. Yes, you too can "purchase a batch of individual codes, good for redemption of song downloads at the iTunes Music Store" and run your own giveaway.

Ready to show Pepsi a thing or two about how to run a promotion? All you have to do is download Apple's iTunes Volume Song Code Agreement (in Word format-- eeyeeeeeewwwww), fill out the indicated sections, send it in, and wait for Apple to come a-knockin'. Once all the paperwork is squared away and you fork over the cash, Apple will send you a text file full of Pepsiesque redemption codes which you can print on bottlecaps or stick in fortune cookies or distribute in pretty much any manner you see fit.

It gets better: there's a discount involved. Depending on how many codes you purchase, you can qualify for a savings of up to 20% off the standard 99 cents per song. If Pepsi had paid full price for each of those 100 million free downloads upon redemption, as was widely reported at the time, they'd probably be smacking themselves silly right about now. (At least, they would be if they had given away more than the thirty-seven songs that were actually redeemed.) Apple confirms that the Pepsi promo used this very volume purchase program, although while refunds on unused codes are "typically not available," you can bet that Pepsi didn't pay $80 million for its codes, 95% of which went unused; if it had, there would have been riots and lynchings at the company's last shareholders' meeting. (Not there's anything wrong with that.)

So there you have it: how to buy your own batch of iTMS codes. Any catches? Well, duh. For one thing, the minimum purchase is 25,000 songs if you represent a commercial entity, or 10,000 if you're buying on behalf of an institution of higher education, so we're talking about a sizeable chunk of cash up front, here. And if you've got dollar signs in your eyes right now because you're thinking you'll score a bunch of songs at 79 cents each and eBay 'em off in lots at maybe 89 cents apiece, no can do-- Apple is very clear that "iTunes song codes are available for purchase as giveaway items only" and that "song codes may not be re-sold to customers or other third parties." Otherwise, though, we can't wait to see what other companies-- and schools-- start their own giveaways, if only to show Pepsi that it can, in fact, be done in a manner other than that of a concussed tree sloth on acid.