Digital Rights Management and iTunes



This topic has been mentioned in a few threads for various reasons.

It seems many of us are trying to better organize our digital music libraries on computers.

Although I like iTunes and the iPod interface, I do not like DRM complicating my life for files I have purchased and rightfully own.

Similarly, I am currently frustrated that the Apple "lossless" format is proprietary and therefore cannot be used on my new HiFiMan player as I try to migrate to that player for higher portable fidelity.

So for the first time last night thanks to a suggestion in another thread, I noticed that it is not so complicated to back up a purchased iTunes library by "ripping" to CD.

Then, if I take that ripped music, and RE rip my backup CD - presto - I get unencumbered WAV files on my hard drive?

I suppose that adds a step in the process, but otherwise pretty surprising that DRM is so easily defeated?

Again, I am only doing this with music and files I have purchased and paid for from iTunes.

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions.
cwlondon

Showing 1 response by kbarkamian

CWlondon -

I've bought several tracks from iTunes in the past. My wife still buys them, but her music sucks so I don't listen to it.

I've burned and ripped purchased tracks several times, and they've always played on every CDP I've ever used - hifi, low fi, and car fi. The problems others have had may be the burn and not the music itself. A lot of hifi players have problems with CDRs burned at high speeds. I've always burned at 6x.

Purchased tracks are 256 kbs, or at least that's what my iTunes library is telling me. Left click on a track and select get info. The summary page tells the bitrate, encoding, etc.

The purchased tracks sound a good bit worse than CDs. mp3 (or whatever Apple calls it) sounds congested, muffled, sharp, and ringing to my ears.

Your best bet would probably be to download db Power amp and have it convert the files to whatever you want. Never had a problem with it. I've mainly converted from FLAC to Apple Lossless.