Headphone play/pause button controls iTunes only

Finally upgraded my MacBook Pro (Unibody late 2008) from leopard to snow leopard, with a view to go to Lion when it finishes downloading. I've now noticed that hitting the single button on my Etymotic HF-2's no longer play/pauses the media in the active player but launches iTunes if it's not running, and play/pauses iTunes content if iTunes is running. Historically on Leopard, pressing this button would cause the active player to play/pause, be it Spotify, VLC or any other media player (Though spotify and VLC are my most used players)

Anyone know how to return to this behavior?

Solution 1:

You can do this with ControllerMate:

And a little little AppleScript (each line for each function):

tell application "Spotify" to playpause
tell application "Spotify" to next track
tell application "Spotify" to previous track

If you open QuickTime Player it will silently ignore the play/pause button and prevent iTunes from being opened, if you don't iTunes will still try to play something. Another solution to prevent iTunes from starting is to disable the 'Remote Control Daemon', how to do this is explained in detail on superuser.

Solution 2:

You have to combine both answers posted here.

Configure ControllerMate as described by Luke for your program of choice and apply the Play Button iTunes Patch mentioned by Stephen.

Then you can control your app of choice by using a headphone remote control without starting iTunes.