Originally posted by: kamper
It used to be possible to do with iTunes through a plugin (read
here). So if you have an older copy of iTunes you might be able to do it.
Gurck, could you expand on the copy protection features? I figured it would be worth it for him to try a simple file copy but, there's something standing in the way of that?
Basically, you can think of iPods as having two different directories - one for whatever you want to put on it, in regular file formats, and one for music which can only be accessed by iTunes and unsupported third-party software such as ephpod. Each directory's size is variable, though combined they can of course hold only what the particular iPod model's capacity is. Files in the regular file directory can be freely manipulated, copied, moved, etc., but if you put music files there the iPod will not play them. Music files in the music directory (which the iPod will play) are under tighter restrictions, and trying to copy them has often resulted in people having their entire iPod drive deleted. I'm not sure what the exact rules are for this (nor do I care, as I'd never buy an iPod after doing my homework on them). Don't get me wrong - I'm all for the ideal of copy protection - however in practice it just seems to hurt legitimate consumers while pirates laugh, easily get around it, and continue to do their thing.
I have two PCs. Suppose I put a lossless CD which I own onto my digital player, using my main rig. I then decide I'd rather have it in mp3, but my main rig is now busy encoding a DVD, or is off and I don't want to bother booting it up, or is in the middle of a repair or cleaning, etc... so I plug my player into my HTPC to encode it to mp3, delete the lossless, and put the mp3 version on it. With an iRiver or iAudio, I can do this no problem. With an iPod, 1) I can't do that and 2) I'm running the risk of having
everything on my iPod, both music and files, deleted thanks to copy protection. Trying to manipulate music
which I own. This is why I'm against what copy protection, in practice, does - it takes away your freedom.
This is just one reason of
many why the iPod is a bad choice, but it's beyond the scope of this thread to comment more in depth on that.