Checkered pattern on itunes?
I'd assume that's some kind of DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection. I recall from the early days, when Macs still had optical drives and a DVD player app, that if you tried to take a screenshot while the DVD player was visible, even as you saw a frame of the movie there, it came out black in the screenshot. So I guess these kinds of countermeasures go a long way and Apple has no intention of removing them.

As for a way around it, I suppose site policy frowns upon discussing what is effectively piracy (even if you try to argue this might be fair use, which I might actually concede).