Illustrated article on how FairPlay works Outdated, interesting and slightly off-topic: It is possible, however, to remove these custom tags to restore interoperability with players that conform strictly to the AAC specification. These files mostly adhere to the AAC standard and are playable on many non-Apple products but they do include custom iTunes information such as album artwork and a purchase receipt, so as to identify the customer in case the file is leaked out onto peer-to-peer networks. On May 29, 2007, Apple began selling songs and music videos free of DRM from participating record labels. Something similar to a watermark on a letter or the copyright in pictures. it's just cheap insurance, IMHO.Įdited by Capn Easy, 31 December 2009 - 10:15 PM.Īpple just installed the "light" form of drm. It is then legal to rip the CDs to MP3s - in fact, in the beginning this was the officially approved method for non-Ipod users to use Itunes.)ĮDIT: I should also add that no matter where I buy music from, I always burn them to CD. (Note: Even with the older protected AAC files it is legal to burn them to audio CDs - I think the limit is/was 3 times.
My Zen Vision:M won't play AAC files, whether DRMed or not, so this is doubly inconvenient. Those songs still show up in Itunes as $.99 songs, so I assume they still have DRM. When I right-click on them Itunes won't convert them from AAC to MP3 - it displays an error message about not being able to convert protected files.
But I believe that even the DRM-free songs still download as AAC files, which means that I still have to manually convert them to MP3.Īs an example, I have some songs from Annie Haslam's "It Snows in Heaven too" that I purchased from Itunes some time ago. I believe that the $1.29 songs are DRM-free, but I believe the $.99 songs still have DRM. I'm not an authority on Itunes, but I have some friends and relatives who know I'm "into music" so I get some gift cards.