iTunes--how does it work exactly?

[Pants]

What's everyone else's iTunes experience like?

I love iTunes, but I use it mostly as a jukebox/CD burning suite. I've only bought one song using the store, but it was fairly easy (annoying that I had to update my copy of iTunes to d/l the song) and I haven't had any problems with the .m4a aside from my inability to use it in .mp3 CD's.

I highly recommend it.

 

[Desdichado]

I haven't had any problems with the .m4a aside from my inability to use it in .mp3 CD's.

Since that's one of the things I do most with my music these days, that's a huge problem for me, though.

Anyway, I was temporarily sated by emusic. They had some of the particular songs I was looking for, the have variable bitrate mp3s with no DRM, and they have a two week and fifty song free trial period.

I'm sure they're not my long-term solution; I don't like flatrate monthly fee type services, and I also suspect I'll run out of stuff I want (from them anyway) fairly quickly. I might just cancel before my free trial ends, sign up in my wife's name for another fifty songs, and then be done with them.

 

[Psionicist]

This tool: http://nanocrew.net/?page_id=123 for example, will convert the iTunes files to standard, non-DRM AAC files.

Here's another tool that removes the annoying iTunes DRM: http://hymn-project.org/

Here's an alternative interface to the iTunes store, the good thing about this program it it won't add the DRM at all: http://nanocrew.net/?page_id=63 There's also a program named PyMusique but I don't know if it works now.

 

[Abstraction]

Just to add to what Psionicist said, the downloads from iTunes are m4a files. There are ways to strip them down to mp3s. Some are semi-legal. For instance, you can burn your m4a to an audio cd. You can import songs from an audio cd as mp3. Software that converts and strips to mp3 is mildly illegal. However, I am of the opinion that it should be considered fair-use. This is what I do, because I bought the damn music, have never pirated and never share it illegally. I got a free mp3 player and it only plays mp3s, so I converted my music library to (high-quality) mp3s with jHymn. Not sure what the best conversion solution for Windows is.

 

[Psionicist]

Aren't the itunes files m4p? (That is, normal mpeg 4 aac) with DRM? (the p).

Anyhow, it's not illegal to remove DRM in the same sense it's not illegal to use a region-free DVD player. So go ahead.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I'm not sure if it is illegal or not to remove the DRM from digital music files purchased through iTunes Store. But most of what Apple is doing with those digital music files isn't to make it impossible to share, but only to make it unreasonably difficult for average users to do it effortlessly.

 

[msd]

Aren't the itunes files m4p? (That is, normal mpeg 4 aac) with DRM? (the p).

Anyhow, it's not illegal to remove DRM in the same sense it's not illegal to use a region-free DVD player. So go ahead.

Are you sure about that? I thought the DCMA made that illegal in the US.

Not a lawyer, but a law student,
Matt

 

[Psionicist]

Are you sure about that? I thought the DCMA made that illegal in the US.

Not a lawyer, but a law student,
Matt

I'm not sure, but it hasn't been tested in court either. As long as you don't share the song when the DRM is removed you haven't really done anything wrong though, according to most people.

 

[msd]

I'm not sure, but it hasn't been tested in court either. As long as you don't share the song when the DRM is removed you haven't really done anything wrong though, according to most people.

Again...not sure where you are getting your information from. I just ran a Westlaw search for DCMA and came up with a number of hits of decisions involving these kinds of issues.

I am not trying to argue with you about it, but I would be careful suggesting that removing DRM is not illegal.

-Matt

 

[Psionicist]

Again...not sure where you are getting your information from. I just ran a Westlaw search for DCMA and came up with a number of hits of decisions involving these kinds of issues.

I am not trying to argue with you about it, but I would be careful suggesting that removing DRM is not illegal.

-Matt

Nice, do you have some links? There are dozens of cases of creating/selling the programs, but I haven't found any about regular Joe's using them.