Comments on: Unprotecting iTunes vs. Unprotecting Napster

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:42:12 +0000

Who cares people in the music business are much more well-off than all of us anyway, I say in this economy we shouldn’t care about stealing music from them. Its like these people drive $50K cars and complaining about we are stealing from them. F Off!

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:54:02 +0000

I use i-tunes. I bought an i-pod and started downloading not realizing initially that they were protected. I’ve downloaded tons of albums (paid for of course) and truly wish that there was a way to unprotect them ethically and legally. I read above things that certain people wrote concerning illegally obtaining music without paying. I just want to say that I have a friend who is a professional musician in Nashville, making his living in the music industry. If you are a deadbeat downloading illegal music, shame on you. You are part of the reason why very few record companies are signing new artists and why some professional musicians who have spent a huge amount of time, dedication, and money to perfecting their talents, are having to get a part-time job. In my book, you’re low-life, deadbeat, worm dung.

By: Janet A

Janet A — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:38:39 +0000

I like iTunes, and their catalog has more “obscurities” than Napster. I also use Ruckus. The problem for me is that I have a non-Apple (Sansa) MP3 player, which is fine for what I need. But I can’t use my iTunes, paid-for downloads on it unless I go through the CD burn and then upload to Napster, which does recognize Sansa. I’ve paid for the music and I have a problem with not being able to legally use it as my circumstances dictate.

jma

p.s. Yes, analog is better. Has anyone used a digital turntable to turn analog into digital? Does it trim the highs and lows the way commercial digital music seems to?

By: Seth

Seth — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:02:29 +0000

i thank you for this. i have a samsung mp3 player that itunes does not recognize as a device. meaning i cannot put protected itunes music on it. this will help me be able to listen to that stuff on my mp3 player! :D

By: Kyle Blanks

Kyle Blanks — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 18:11:02 +0000

I would agree with a lot of people who make the argument that owning music is no longer necessary or even the most practical way… I’m all for signing up for a subscription service such as Napster or Yahoo! Music Unlimited and paying the $15 or so subscription fee. But i want to be able to play that music on my iPod.

As of now, for as much as I know, the only service that is iPod compatible as the iTunes Music Store. I would prefer not to pay 99 cents for every song, and just pay a monthly fee.

Am i correct in saying that iTunes is the only iPod compatible service? And if thats true, would it be legal to use Tunebite to free that music so i could put it on my iPod?

By: john

john — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 02:34:49 +0000

I have a Macbook with OS X operating on it and I want to know how to if at all to unprotect movies that I purchased through iTunes and also one movie my brother downloaded via Limewire and is now protected after transferring to my new computer. I want to unprotect these files so that I can stream them to my xbox 360. The streaming of video to the 360 from the mac supports MP4 files; however, it does not support the protected mp4 files which really gets to me. If anyone has any idea how to unprotect these files so that I may view them on my 32″ lcd tv and not my 13″ screen please email me at socalstud10@hotmail.com.

P.S. I have no probelm buying all my movies and not downloading them but if I can’t enjoy what I buy on my own tv I do not see a problem downloading movies. In fact, I am downloading 15+ movies right now and then I will proceed to convert them to a !@#$%$# unprotected mpeg4 VF format and maybe I will even burn them and give them to my friends out of disgust towards these individuals.

By: Ted Ulrich

Ted Ulrich — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I went to freemymp3.com and now sure what part is fraud. The software i downloaded was a trial version then i had to pay for the full version. the software worked great. How do i know if i got an illegal copy or not?

By: SunPass

SunPass — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“For the purposes of burning a song to CD, shouldn’t you at least have the option of downloading it in wav format.”

“For the purposes of burning a song to CD”

“burning a song to CD”

Good luck dropping your Apple lossless file onto a CD without having to convert it.

McDonalds is now offering lossless Bic Macs… They absolutely taste exactly the same. They have the same amount of ingrediants. They just step on them before they put them in the bag… to make them physically smaller.
Wouldn’t you rather have the regular sized Bic Mac. You can just eat right out of the wrapper without trying to fluff it back up.

By: Rut

Rut — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

You can revise the steps to unprotect files from “Burn to CD” to just create a new iTunes Playlist and import your purchased songs to it. Then convert.

By: Watcher

Watcher — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Travis, I just saw your article saying something about freemymp3.com giving you the solution to unlocking your DRM protected files. Although, this comment was made a month ago I have to let the people know, that freemymp3.com is a fraud. Dunno if you are receiving the software they are asking money for, but by looking at the screenshots thei provide on their website, it shows, that the software they are promising to send is in fact another tool for bypassing DRM. It is called Tunebite(www.tunebite.com) and this one is indeed a real nice tool to work with. But the guy from freemymp3.com is selling illegal copies of Tunebite. So beware !!!

By: patriot, not thief

patriot, not thief — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sunpass, you were making such a lot of sense until you said ‘Also Napster gives Military users over 10% off. (That’s patriotic.)

Since when does giving a discount to the tool of one man stealing the oil of another country make you patriotic?

The military does a fine job when defending it’s country against a foreign power, or helping a nation in distress, but when it is sent in to another country to depose a leader who was trained by the CIA and placed in power by the US, the miltary becomes a tool of the greedy oil hungry neo cons. While I am sure that every man and woman in the military is obeying their command without question, you should not confuse patriotism with blind faith in a corrupt leadership

By: travis

travis — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

i got an ebook thing from freemymp3.com and it showed me how to unlock all my napster songs the i hadn’t paid for. i got me bunches of muis now. i just need to know about a good place to buy cd-r’s. any good ideas out there?

By: marble head

marble head — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi, i noticed you have an X8 and i was wondering if i could ask you something. I am also a proud owner of an x8 am overall i am very impressed, however, i do not know how to turn the current song i am working on into a wav file to export to my computer. Please could you tell me how i can get the song with all the sounds and quality onto my computer in a viable format so that i can convert them to mp3s. Many Thanks. marble head

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting arguments all around. I think that if Wifi (or WiMax) is as ubiquitous as my cell phone signal (which it will be eventually), then the Napster model becomes a lot more attractive to me. But for now, I’ll still buy CDs and just rip them into iTunes right away.

Music and video are not such great comparisons however. You listen to your favorite song (or album) hundreds and sometimes thousands of times in your life. You watch your favorite movie usually less than ten times, IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE! This has enormous implications on whether or not people will prefer to rent or own. If you’re consuming something as infrequently as you do any given movie, there really is no reason to own. Additionally, you’re almost always watching movies at your house, whereas you can be sitting on a beach listening to music. Point here being that currently, you’re more likely to have a fast connection handy during movie watching than you are during music listening.

By: SunPass

SunPass — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“If something better comes along and you quit Napster what would you lose?”

“something better comes along” “something better”

If it was better, I am sure it would have the same music you are “losing” and more.

You would “lose” your Napster music and then “gain” the music right back with the new service. Because it’s better. Otherwise, you wouldn’t leave Napster.

If you want to “own” your music in a non compressed format, then keep buying CD’s at Wal-mart. You are obviously not ready for the new “on demand” way of thinking. I’ll bet your grand children will never have to store any of their music. They will simply connect and listen to whatever they want, whenever they want, for one low monthly fee. The thinking these days is still old… You still think you have to own everything you listen to and keep it stored safely in your house. I already demonstrated that it is much safer in the database. It’s there and it isn’t going anywhere so just relax and enjoy.

By the way, all you apple heads hate subscription services because Apple doesn’t offer it. I would bet that Apple will eventually get it and offer a subsciption based program. Then suddenly all the apple heads will LOVE subscription services and probably claim that Apple invented it. I love that you guys are so loyal but why can’t you admit it when something other than the Apple way is better.

I pay 9.95 a month and listen to whatever I want, whenever I want. My Apple buddy in the next office pays way more than 9.95 a month for the music he buys. Plus he listens to 30 second clips all day. Annoying….
What will happen if a band comes along and makes all of their songs only 30 seconds long? Apple would be sharing the whole songs for free. ahhhh.