How can I unprotect these song files?
Asked by
Mariah (
25883
)
October 31st, 2011
I have 11 songs in m4p format that I bought through iTunes. Unfortunately I bought them using my old computer, and the m4p format is so ridiculously protected that it won’t let me play these songs because my current computer is not “authorized” to do so.
I bought all these songs legally and now I can’t listen to them anymore. How can I remove the protection from these sound files? I’ve heard you can convert them to mp3s by burning to a CD then ripping it, but I’m not “authorized” to burn them either. Is there any way around this bullshit?
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
7 Answers
I do not have any personal experience with iTunes DRM. But, what you want is something that will strip the DRM (Digital Rights Management) off of the file. I think this might be a good starting place. You could also just download the songs again from places that aren’t iTunes, places that give you things that don’t have DRM.
@Aethelflaed Thanks. I saw some applications like that when I googled, but am hesitant to try anything until I know it’s legal and not a virus in disguise. If anybody has any personal experience with any of those applications and can vouch for them, that’d be great.
@Mariah DoubleTwist is free of viruses, as is Tune Clone (personal experience). DoubleTwist has a great rep for its other services as well.
I heard the workaround from iTunes is to burn a CD with those tunes on them, using the facility in iTunes. That will be unprotected and be of pretty good quality (CD is 44khz sampling). Then you can re-import or whatever with them.
Do you remember the itunes account you used to buy the songs? (If you look at at get info its recorded on the first tab)
If so then you can sign in to that itunes account on your new computer and this will authorise it to play them. If you have run out of authorisations then you can deauthorise all computers linked to that acount from the itunes account managment page and start again. Once you’ve authorised the computer to that itunes acount then you can redownload the files from itunes and now all itunes music is unprotected and of a higher quality anyway
If you already own the songs legally, I see no moral dilemma in capturing them off of YouTube with something like Download Helper to save them in whatever format you like (the full version will capture any video from any site and save it in whatever format you choose…MPEG, AVI, MP3, etc.). Just about every song ever released is on some YouTube video somewhere. And VEVO puts up all the latest songs if you don’t mind waiting past the ads.
Answer this question 
This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.
Composing members:
0
