according to the writer : This seems to work with iTunes 8 and 9, although you'll need to redo the patch after upgrading. Open a Terminal and type the following cd /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS sudo mv iTunes iTunesX sudo curl http://www.cs.umd.edu/~dmonner/iTunes -O sudo chmod uog+x iTunes enter code here From http://www.cs.umd.edu/~dmonner/iTunes #!/usr/bin/env python import sys, os, subprocess launch = True blocker = "" apps = ["Spotify", "Songbird"] ps = subprocess.Popen("/bin/ps -x", shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE) for line in ps.stdout.read().split("\n"): for app in apps: if app in line: launch = False blocker = app ps.stdout.close() if launch : os.spawnvp(os.P_WAIT, '/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesX', sys.argv) else : print "Not launching iTunes while %s is running." % blocker and you can read more [here][1] and [here][2]. [1]: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2122639&start=30&tstart=0 [2]: http://superuser.com/questions/31925/stop-play-pause-button-opening-itunes-in-snow-leopard