Escape Apple's AAC DRM

[unfalliblekrutch]

My friend has hundreds of songs locked into itunes because he bought them during the hayday of Apple's DRM-infested store and he wants to escape to zune land now, but didn't want to lose his music. Other than burning to cd and re-ripping as mp3s, is there any way to strip the drm?

 

[bossantonio]

If I want to use Boxee on my AppleTV, do I lose the ability to play songs and movies that are protected with FairPlay iTunes DRM?

 

[Kmax82]

I, personally, don't know of any other methods to get rid of the DRM. The FairPlay apps that would remove the DRM were only playing them through your computer and reencoding as it went.

 

[MrChad]

Upgrade to iTunes plus?

 

[Kmax82]

Upgrade to iTunes plus?

Heh.. true. Forgot about that.

 

[Kadarin]

Upgrade to iTunes plus?

You could do this. Or you could look up an old copy of the hymn project and use that to strip the DRM. This might require an old (7.x) version of iTunes to do, however. I'm not sure on the legality of this.

 

[TheStu]

The only definitely legal way that I can think of to do it will be to upgrade them to iTunes Plus, but at $.30 a pop ($3 for albums) that will get expensive quick.

Alternatively, is your friend getting ZunePass? If yes, then he can always replace them 10 at a time, because I am fairly certain that ZunePass songs (that you get each month) are DRM free.

Then of course there is the CD burning method, but I do not know how legal that is, strictly. I know that Apple offers and 'recommends' it, but with how anal the RIAA is, I wouldn't be surprised that at this point, buying blanks CDs was considered a no no.

 

[KeithP]

The only definitely legal way that I can think of to do it will be to upgrade them to iTunes Plus, but at $.30 a pop ($3 for albums) that will get expensive quick.

Aren't the iTunes Plus version also higher bit rate? Still a little pricey but at least you are getting an improved product at the same time.

-KeithP

 

[Kmax82]

Aren't the iTunes Plus version also higher bit rate? Still a little pricey but at least you are getting an improved product at the same time.

-KeithP

Yea, they're 256kb as well. So that's a nice plus. There's definitely a difference between the older 128 and the newer 256 Plus tracks.