iTunes DRM

[The 9th Sage]

What is the best (easiest or not) way to strip DRM from iTunes songs? Or is this something I shouldn't ask here?
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[thegodofhellfire]

> What is the best (easiest or not) way to strip DRM from
> iTunes songs? Or is this something I shouldn't ask here?

Burn to CD-RW, re-rip to your chosen format. You'll lose artwork and tagging, but that's easily sorted afterwards.

That's how I used iTunes whilst my Zen still worked. I'm all iPodded up now, though, so there's no need anymore.
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[(wraith_)]

> > What is the best (easiest or not) way to strip DRM from
> > iTunes songs? Or is this something I shouldn't ask here?

> Burn to CD-RW, re-rip to your chosen format. You'll lose
> artwork and tagging, but that's easily sorted afterwards.

> That's how I used iTunes whilst my Zen still worked. I'm all
> iPodded up now, though, so there's no need anymore.

Ewww... transcoding.

Burning to a CD doesn't make it magically lossless. You're basically putting a 128kb/s wav on a CD when you burn an m4p.

Then when you re-rip it to your new format, you're making a 128kb/s (or whatever bit rate) rip of an already 128kb/s audio file--even if you rip it at 320kb/s, you end up with something that is of lesser quality than the barely mediocre file you initially purchased.

There used to be software called Hymn that could remove the DRM, but it was kinda iffy still when last I tried it (2005), and could result in Apple noticing what you were up to and disabling your iTunes account, rendering any material purchased with that account useless. Caveat emptor.

I used to be a big advocate of iTunes, but to be honest, you get a song of limited usability and questionable quality. You're better off going to a non-national chain record store and paying a couple of extra bucks for a CD with non-lossy music that you can do whatever the hell you want with.

Or getting an account at a high-quality invite-only BT tracker and "acquiring" FLAC rips of your music.

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[thegodofhellfire]

> Ewww... transcoding.

Yes, fully aware of all of that. But you can either accept a quick and reliable method which factors in a 5-10% drop in sound quality, or spend a sizeable chunk of time trying to retain that by means that could give you hassle further down the line (eg obsoletion on every new iTunes version, potential suspension of account, etc). It's question of balance.

But you're right - buying the CD will always be preferable. It's madness to buy a full album from iTunes when you can buy a tangible item from a shop with superior sound quality. For individual songs it makes far more sense. But once someone has committed to buying music from iTunes, then clearly (within reason) complete audio transparency is not going to be an issue.
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[The 9th Sage]

> But you're right - buying the CD will always be preferable.
> It's madness to buy a full album from iTunes when you can
> buy a tangible item from a shop with superior sound quality.

Well, a friend of mine bought them on my computer anyway, I don't really plan to use iTunes all that much. I actually wish that allofmp3 was totally legal. Aaaah...if only all download services would let you pick whatever format you wanted the music to be in.
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[Kitsune Sniper]

> What is the best (easiest or not) way to strip DRM from
> iTunes songs? Or is this something I shouldn't ask here?

Pay them thirty cents more for non-DRMed versions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6516189.stm

(Well, if you have EMI tracks anyway.)
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