iTunes Music Store DRM Summary

[MacRumors]

This is a brief summary of Apple's Digital Rights Management System based on available information. Please send in corrections or further observations/experiences.

For the purposes of this article: DRM = Digital Rights Management. Protected AAC = AAC purchased from Apple's Music Store.

Apple introduced their new iTunes Music Store which features AAC formated files available for download. The new files feature a form of "Digital Rights Management"... aka Copy Protection. First word of Apple's work on this technology with respect to MPEG4 (AAC) was in a PCPro.co.uk article in February of this year. At that time, DRM incorporation into the MPEG4 standard was set to be accomplished by June of this year.

How it Works

Surprisingly few details about the implementation of the AAC DRM have been revealed. The following represents a list of restrictions and capabilities for consumers as gathered at this time:

- Protected AAC files have the extension: .m4p -- ripped AAC files are .m4a

- Unlimited Burning of Protected AACs into regular CD format.

- Only the iPod and Apple's iTunes and seemingly Quicktime-based apps currently allow playing of these Protected AAC's.

- Up to three computers can be authorized to play Puchased AAC's.

- Playlists containing any Protected AAC's can only be burned 10 times. You must change the list manually before you can burn again. Tech Note

- Burning a Protected AAC to a CD strips all encoding and DRM. That CD can then be used as any CD song is used. The quality of the song on the CD is identical to the AAC version. However, then ripping the song into MP3 or AAC will result in loss of some quality. While ripping a song into any lossy compression format will result in loss of quality -- recompressing these previously compressed songs may exaggerate the quality loss. Your results will vary depending on the exact piece of audio.

- Transcoding from Protected AAC to MP3/AIFF from iTunes is prohibited by iTunes.

- If you're listening to a shared library or playlist, iTunes skips any purchased music in the list (if the computer is not authorized to play the music). To listen to a purchased song in a shared library or playlist, you need to double-click the song. If your computer is not authorized to play songs purchased by the person who is sharing the song, you'll need to enter that person's Apple Account ID and password to hear the song. Tech Note

- According to Apple: iTunes will only play AAC files that are created by iTunes or downloaded from the Music Store. "Other AAC files that you find on the Internet or elsewhere will not play in iTunes." However, Anecdotal evidence does not support this. Users have reported being able to play AAC files encoded outside of iTunes. (Tech Note)

- AACs you rip from CD from iTunes have no restrictions.

- Authorization/Deauthorization appears to be based on a central server model... as Apple claims that \"Initializing the drive will not deauthorize the computer. If you will be initializing the drive, deauthorize the computer first, then initialize the drive [ Tech Note ]

Other Tips

- If your music store download gets interrupted, iTunes should restart when you reconnect. Tech Note
- Easily Adding Art to iTunes: MacOSXHints
- Sharing Music over IP: MacObserver

[Freg3000]

This is a good run down of all the iTunes Music Store info. Much easier to get the story straight this way instead of reading 10 threads.

[dethl]

I'm gonna take a pretty good guess and say that someone is going to come out with a way around this DRM stuff. Though, once its gone, its not really that easy to get these files onto kazaa...since there is no mac client (and probably never will be)

[Computer_Phreak]

I think this is a good way to go...
Easy for the average consumer, yet protects songs from piracy (somewhat).

[porovaara]

Uh, wtf? Won't place AAC files from other sources?

So you can't rip your own music WITH quicktime into AAC and play it?

[scem0]

Originally posted by Computer_Phreak
I think this is a good way to go...
Easy for the average consumer, yet protects songs from piracy (somewhat).

I agree. But I bet there will be a way around it within the next
2 weeks or so.

[grahams]

I take it these DRM "features" also apply to AAC files I rip from my own CDs?

Like many, I'm currently in the process of re-ripping all my CDs so I can take avantage of AAC rather than MP3. However, I notice that no menu option exists to export my new AAC's to MP3 format, so DRM must also apply in this scenario.

That's gonna be a real pain if you want to transfer your tracks to a Windows machine or indeed anything that ain't a Mac or iPod. So my advice is that when making the choice between ripping in AAC or MP3, users will have to balance up the small gains to be had from AAC versus the portability of MP3.

[j763]

If you buy stuff from Apple, just burn it, then rerip in AAC. You get virtually 0 quality loss.

[arn]

Originally posted by grahams
I take it these DRM "features" also apply to AAC files I rip from my own CDs?

Like many, I'm currently in the process of re-ripping all my CDs so I can take avantage of AAC rather than MP3. However, I notice that no menu option exists to export my new AAC's to MP3 format, so DRM must also apply in this scenario.

DRM does not apply to AAC files you rip from your own CDs.

arn

[Xero]

nice news thread, answered some of my questions, thanks arn.

i think its unfortunate that you cant play these songs on a PC, but i also think its unfortunate that people want to potentially hurt this great new service by "cracking" the DRM system.

[Sun Baked]

Originally posted by j763
If you buy stuff from Apple, just burn it, then rerip in AAC. You get virtually 0 quality loss.

Sounds a lot like an old analog photo copy machines, the first couple generations may be OK -- but there is a point that the copy starts to suck.

Since it is a lossy format, there is a point the quality loss will become evident, with repeated recompressing.

[grahams]

Originally posted by arn
DRM does not apply to AAC files you rip from your own CDs.

arn

Are you absolutely sure about that? I note that when ripping from my own CDs .m4a files are created on my hard drive, which I think may be the DRM variant of .mp4 files.

Also interesting to note that these .m4a files cannot be previewed (ie. played) in the Finder, whereas MP3s can. This suggests DRM is being used as playback is restricted to the iTunes application.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

[arn]

Originally posted by Sun Baked
Sounds a lot like an old analog photo copy machines, the first couple generations may be OK -- but there is a point that the copy starts to suck.

Since it is a lossy format, there is a point the quality loss will become evident, with repeated recompressing.

Why would you need to recompress it? That ripped AAC is DRM-free.

arn

[coyote]

Originally posted by Sun Baked
Sounds a lot like an old analog photo copy machines, the first couple generations may be OK -- but there is a point that the copy starts to suck.

Since it is a lossy format, there is a point the quality loss will become evident, with repeated recompressing.

Of course, you don't need repeated compressions, since the compression from a burnt CD isn't DRMed.

[arn]

Originally posted by grahams
Are you absolutely sure about that? I note that when ripping from my own CDs .m4a files are created on my hard drive, which I think may be the DRM variant of .mp4 files.

Also interesting to note that these .m4a files cannot be previewed (ie. played) in the Finder, whereas MP3s can. This suggests DRM is being used as playback is restricted to the iTunes application.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

I'm sure. And my .m4a files can preview in Finder.

arn

[jethroted]

Thank you for this thread.

[bentmywookie]

Originally posted by porovaara
Uh, wtf? Won't place AAC files from other sources?

Seriously! I think that's a little too much control on Apple's part. Hopefully this will get changed soon.

[mjtomlin]

"Only the iPod and Apple's iTunes currently allow playing of these Protected AAC's."

Actually the QuickTime Player, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD can play them also. And i suspect any application that utilizes the QuickTime layer.

Another thing to add...

- You can only use iTunes 4 to authorize and deauthorize your system.

mikey T.

[ParaNox]

- iTunes will only play AAC files that are created by iTunes or downloaded from the Music Store. "Other AAC files that you find on the Internet or elsewhere will not play in iTunes."

I Ripped An Album before iTune4 and QT 6.2 then added It to iTune3 and edited Tags It was played perfectly because QT 6 provide the Decoder engine so I do not agree with this affirmation untill you provide an example of application wich can encode .m4a without being able to produce iTune3/4 playable and compliant AAC file...

[arn]

Originally posted by ParaNox
I Ripped An Album before iTune4 and QT 6.2 then added It to iTune3 and edited Tags It was played perfectly because QT 6 provide the Decoder engine so I do not agree with this affirmation untill you provide an example of application wich can encode .m4a without being able to produce iTune3/4 playable and compliant AAC file...

Questions:

1) What did you use to rip the AAC first.

2) Are you able to play it in iTunes 4?

arn

[SubGothius]

I note that when ripping from my own CDs .m4a files are created on my hard drive, which I think may be the DRM variant of .mp4 files.

.mp4 files are full (audio and/or video) MPEG-4 movies, just like .mpg files are full MPEG-1 movies. You can split .mpg movie tracks into separate .m1a (MPEG-1 audio) and .m1v (MPEG-1 video) files; and you can break .mp4 movie tracks down into .m4a (MPEG-4 audio) and .m4v (MPEG-4 video) components. AAC (MPEG-4 audio) files should typically have the .m4a extension, not .aac nor .mp4 -- the latter may work, but that's designating it as a "movie" file (which would just happen to lack a video track in this case).

[suneun]

Does the computer have to be connected to the internet to have iTunes 4 authorize the song? If not (and it seems more likely that it has to), then how does it confirm the password? Maybe each song has a degenerate form of your password against which it checks a crunched form of your password? But that really doesn't sound very Secure.

Can more than one Apple ID be authorized by that computer?

Why (technically) can't these aac files be played on non-iTunes/apple-branded-programs?

And lastly (derail), can the newest iPod update work with iTunes 3?

Thanks. I'm waiting to download the iTunes/iPod update until after I understand all the MusicStore stuff.

[kallisti]

Thanks for the summary. Very useful. Answered many of my questions.

[IJ Reilly]

" Unlimited CD Burning of Protected AACs"

Does this mean conventional audio CDs are the result, or AAC CDs? That is, can they be played in an ordinary CD player, like in a car?

[Abercrombieboy]

Originally posted by suneun
Thanks. I'm waiting to download the iTunes/iPod update until after I understand all the MusicStore stuff.

Why? You can use iTunes 4 without even messing with the Music Store stuff. It works just like iTunes 3 did and even better.