Say Goodbye to DRM: The Free and Easy Way

Most of you know this already, but every song you buy from iTunes is designed so that it only plays on your iTunes and your iPod, no one else’s. This is to prevent piracy, it’s called digital rights management, or DRM for short. It’s annoying because say you dislike the iPod but received an iTunes gift card, you wouldn’t be able to use the songs you buy with your MP3 player of choice.

There is, however, an extremely simple way of ridding yourself of DRM. Just burn all your music onto CD’s and re-rip them onto your computer. This could take hours for many people but in the end, it’s well worth the time and effort.

Be careful though, there is a catch. You have to burn the songs onto an “Audio CD” to do this, go to Preferences -> Advanced -> Burning. Then choose Audio CD. The track info (artist, album, etc) disappears as well so you’re going want to hang onto the originals until you’ve renamed all the DRM-free tracks.

When reimporting the songs, I suggest using MP3, as opposed to Apple’s own AAC, to help distinguish between the DRM and DRM-free tracks. To do this, follow the same path to “Burning” except click the “Importing” tab instead. Then go to “Import Using:” and select MP3.

To tell the difference between AAC and MP3, Ctrl+Click the bar at the top of the library that says Artist, Title, etc, and check “Kind”. All the songs that show up as MPEG audio file are MP3 files.

 
 

Submitted on January 31, 2008 at 10:01 pm - Say Goodbye to DRM: The Free and Easy Way was written by Michael Zhao - There have been 9 comments - Categorized in Intermediate Tips, iPod Tips, iTunes Tips

9 Responses to “Say Goodbye to DRM: The Free and Easy Way”

1. 
   Travis Jeffery
   Just to let people know when do this you will lost quality. An alternative without any DRM in the music is Amazon: http://xrl.us/bfijd. Also there are certain music (depends on Recording Company) in iTunes that doesn't have any DRM. January 31st, 2008 at 11:02 pm
   
   
2. 
   Michael Zhao
   How would you lose quality? You can't use iTunes cred at Amazon... January 31st, 2008 at 11:10 pm
   
   
3. 
   Travis Jeffery
   You're burning it, and then re-encoding it when you rip it. And obviously you can't use iTunes cards at Amazon. January 31st, 2008 at 11:56 pm
   
   
4. 
   Ben
   Yeah, re-ripping the AAC files from a CD will degrade the quality slightly. I would imagine this is only as a last resort if anything.
   
   I say use Amazon or eMusic until Apple get it's head out of the clouds. February 1st, 2008 at 8:20 am
   
   
5. 
   Michael Zhao
   Both of you are saying "rebuy all your iTunes songs". I have a friend with 7 gigs of purchased music. Assuming 250 songs in a GB, that's around $1730 of music (he gets like 30 bux a month for music, every month since 6th grade). Re-buying is definitely not the way to go.
   
   And of course you can't use iTunes cred at Amazon, that's my point! what are you gonna do with that gift card you got for your birthday? February 1st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
   
   
6. 
   Travis Jeffery
   Where do you see at any point that one of said "rebuy all your iTunes songs". We're saying use Amazon in the future so you don't get bogged down with DRM. TO use the iTunes gift card but in the future don't get music there. You got it? February 1st, 2008 at 3:51 pm
   
   
7. 
   Michael Zhao
   it just sounded more like you were offering that as an alternative solution to the problem, which it isn't. February 1st, 2008 at 5:03 pm
   
   
8. 
   Julian Pitt
   It doesn't remove your track names.
   In addition, most new iTunes songs are available in iTunes Plus version at the same price, which is DRM-free. February 2nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
   
   
9. 
   Travis Jeffery
   ↑ Right, but I think that iTunes Plus without DRM is available to certain Companies like EMI right? February 2nd, 2008 at 5:37 pm
   
   

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