Author Topic: iTunes (Read 502 times)

LePaul · « **on:** February 20, 2006, 02:35:00 PM »

Well a coworker got me into this, he's a big Apple person and has a pretty slcik iPod. While I dont have one yet, I was impressed that for 99 cents, you can buy the songs you want, burn em to CD and such.

Are there any good prgrams one can suggest from converting the Apple MP4s to MP3?

Bodhi · « **Reply #1 on:** February 20, 2006, 02:39:30 PM »

LePaul,

Keep in mind that the burning feature of the songs you buy is limited too like 6 or 7 times, then you have to buy it again.

I have ITunes and an IPOD. The Ipod went on the fritz and no longer works, Apple wants $45.00 less than a new one to fix it, and I refuse to pay for it, so, I just use the ITunes thing and burn CD's when I need them.

Just sucks to not have the Ipod to listen too when I am skiing or on the plane.

xrtoronto · « **Reply #2 on:** February 20, 2006, 02:42:41 PM »

select the songs, then go to the "advanced" menu and select "convert selection to" and choose MP3

LePaul · « **Reply #3 on:** February 20, 2006, 04:07:57 PM »

I found in the playlist you can right click "convert to MP3" but it gives me a protected media error. Hmm

eagl · « **Reply #4 on:** February 20, 2006, 04:09:47 PM »

Another way to get rid of the apple DRM is to burn the songs to an audio format CD, and then re-rip them to mp3 using a ripping/encoding program other than itunes. That should completely remove all apple DRM and give you the ability to listen to your music on any device you like.

LePaul · « **Reply #5 on:** February 20, 2006, 04:13:00 PM »

Right, that's what Ive had in mind.

I love the method of purchasing the tunes I want, yet I dont want to discover "opps, you cant no more" later.

FUNKED1 · « **Reply #6 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:05:59 PM »

For about 99 cents a song, you can also buy this thing called a CD. It has songs on it, and unlike iTunes it doesn't have crappy 128kbps compression or communistic DRM features.

Also the iTunes client is slow as hell. Resource hog. If I didn't have a Nano I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

eagl · « **Reply #7 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:14:46 PM »

funked,

One of the last CDs I bought installed a sony-designed rootkit on my computer even though I clicked "no" on the installer popup. Another CD I bought had some sort of copy protection on it and it wouldn't play in my car.

CDs may require just as much fiddling around as DRM'd files to get them to play on my audio equipment, so it's pretty much a toss-up which is easier to use. Either way, no matter how you get your music it's still clear that the DRM will attempt to restrict you from playing the music you've purchased except in ways specified by the recording studio. It's also clear that except for when the studio installs a rootkit on your computer, it's generally possible to strip off the DRM to get full use of what you've bought.

If I'm going to have to fight off DRM no matter how I purchase music, and considering that I rarely like more than half of the songs on any CD, it makes a whole lot more sense to buy the songs one at a time. But that's just personal preference, and even though I don't distribute songs I buy, I'm sure the RIAA considers me a criminal in violation of the DMCA regardless of fair-use legal precedents set over the last several dozen years.

I say F' them. Sony hacked their way into my computer and that makes them an intruder to be fought at every opportunity. It took me 8 months to figure out why my laptop would play CDs and DVDs (all legitimately purchased or rented) when my desktop wouldn't.

Eagler · « **Reply #8 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:15:25 PM »

I used hymn last year to convert songs I purchase from itunes into a format i could burn onto a photo slide show dvd movie I created- think it did wav and mp3

makes a backup file of the itunes format and converts it

FUNKED1 · « **Reply #9 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:49:00 PM »

Eagl that's why I use Azureus.

Masherbrum · « **Reply #10 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:51:20 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by eagl
funked,

One of the last CDs I bought installed a sony-designed rootkit on my computer even though I clicked "no" on the installer popup. Another CD I bought had some sort of copy protection on it and it wouldn't play in my car.

CDs may require just as much fiddling around as DRM'd files to get them to play on my audio equipment, so it's pretty much a toss-up which is easier to use. Either way, no matter how you get your music it's still clear that the DRM will attempt to restrict you from playing the music you've purchased except in ways specified by the recording studio. It's also clear that except for when the studio installs a rootkit on your computer, it's generally possible to strip off the DRM to get full use of what you've bought.

If I'm going to have to fight off DRM no matter how I purchase music, and considering that I rarely like more than half of the songs on any CD, it makes a whole lot more sense to buy the songs one at a time. But that's just personal preference, and even though I don't distribute songs I buy, I'm sure the RIAA considers me a criminal in violation of the DMCA regardless of fair-use legal precedents set over the last several dozen years.

I say F' them. Sony hacked their way into my computer and that makes them an intruder to be fought at every opportunity. It took me 8 months to figure out why my laptop would play CDs and DVDs (all legitimately purchased or rented) when my desktop wouldn't.

BY LAW, you are allowed to make ONE Backup copy of a CD. The new "FBI Warning labels" are directed towards downloaders. The RIAA will even admit this, although, they don't mention it.

CD's are around 1100Kbs, there is a HUGE Difference in the sound quality on down to 128Kbs. You still CANNOT go wrong with buying CD's.

Karaya

eagl · « **Reply #11 on:** February 20, 2006, 05:55:54 PM »

Funked,

You do know that even azureus isn't anonymous, right? The bittorrent creator specifically kept it traceable, so all it takes is someone, either the govt or more likely an RIAA legal team, to use a special purpose bittorrent client to notice and subpoena your isp, and you're toast. Azureus just added an encryption feature, but don't for a minute believe that it anonymizes you, because you still had to contact a tracker from your ip address, and the tracker is plain-text html.

That's why I say *finger* to the RIAA, buy only music that I really want, refuse to buy anything from sony (once bitten...), and immediately strip the DRM off of any purchased music so I can use it however I choose.

eagl · « **Reply #12 on:** February 20, 2006, 06:03:14 PM »

Karaya,

You're right about how buying CDs is still a good way to get music, except for the sony rootkit thing. I'm a fairly hard-core computer geek, usually over-react when things start happening by themselves on my computer (my UPS power switch is right next to my left foot so I can get to it in a hurry when my computer starts acting goofy), and I still got nailed by the rootkit and didn't know about it until it hit the news. I very specifically remember telling my computer "no don't install that" when the damn sony popup displayed, and I still got infected.

Yea sony has *promised* to not do that again, but who really believes them? They, or another cd/dvd manufacturer will just mod the rootkit and try again, especially since the fed govt isn't applying the DMCA and patriot act to these mega-companies with the same vigor as they do against old ladies who don't even own computers but who are accused by the RIAA of downloading music.

When sony execs go to jail for hacking people's computers, then I'll trust my govt again. Until then, I trust and follow my chain of command but congress and the dept of State Security (seig heil!) are pretty much just collaborating with the enemy.

Rolex · « **Reply #13 on:** February 20, 2006, 06:47:39 PM »

Curious... do you have CD rental shops in the US or UK?

eagl · « **Reply #14 on:** February 20, 2006, 06:53:19 PM »

I've never seen one, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Used CD stores may as well be rental places because you can get most stuff for a pretty decent price, but I think that if there were CD rental places, iTunes and the other places where you can buy individual songs would pretty much kill them off anyhow.

I know a guy who owned a used CD store and I think the internet (ebay and itunes) ran him out of business. With ebay and amazon used stores, he couldn't even get the hardcore collectors in the door anymore.