At least one person says he was able to download a release candidate of iTunes 8 last night, after a mysterious, out-of-place "Download Now" button appeared in the middle of the iTunes webpage last night. It's not totally inconceivable—iPhone 2.0 was leaked before it officially launched. We've got support docs that reference iTunes 8 showing up in Asia too.

Unfortunately, the dude who's reporting this says he had been using iTunes 6.0 (so why click on the bizarro download button now?) so he's not sure what's new, only that it's a "HUGE upgrade" from 6.0. His fear of Apple's swift and terrible fury is conveniently preventing him from offering up a download.

iTunes 8 is expected to be packed with new features: a Pandora-like "Genius" smart playlist, HD TV downloads, a trippy visualizer, and maybe one other surprise feature. Right now we're kinda skeptical, so if you managed to grab it, please let us know. [UFailPix via AppleInsider - Thanks Erick!]