So a long time ago, as the story goes, I bought about 8 songs on the iTMS. No big deal, i loved them. Except for the small fact that they needed to play in iTunes.
Recently, I built a Media Center PC, mainly because it was cheaper than an AppleTV, and could play more formats. No big deal, except it couldn't play the iTMS songs (windows software, etc). So I did what many others would do, i burned the songs onto on audio CD, and then reripped them into my library as unprotected AAC files (i know audiophiles, crappy quality. i couldn't tell the difference, so it didn't matter to me).
Anyway, all was well, Windows and my iTunes played nice.
Fast forward about a year. I get a new iPod Touch, and am syncing the songs for the first time after a restore of my computer, during which I copied all my songs back on. However, I couldn't copy them onto my new iTouch, which was weird, since they worked on my nano fine. I kept getting warnings that my songs could not be copied because they were not authorized! Mind you, I could play these songs fine on my PC and mac, and they were both listed as "AAC Audio File" (read: unprotected)
What gives!
Eventually, I decided to use the last dollar credited to my now unused iTMS account to purchase a song just to try it out. Turns out, after I reauthorized the protected aac, all the unprotected AAC files copied right over! No more error messages! Perfect!
Except, what does this mean? Is apple DRM tagging files from the library, onto the CD, and then back again as they get imported? Do they know everyone who has shared these covertly DRM'd files? Can they turn them off at a moment's notice? And why could I play them in my library and not on my iPod?
Well, I have no real explanation. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this unusual experience. Maybe some of you have had a similar problem. I guess this is the 99¢ solution.
Recently, I built a Media Center PC, mainly because it was cheaper than an AppleTV, and could play more formats. No big deal, except it couldn't play the iTMS songs (windows software, etc). So I did what many others would do, i burned the songs onto on audio CD, and then reripped them into my library as unprotected AAC files (i know audiophiles, crappy quality. i couldn't tell the difference, so it didn't matter to me).
Anyway, all was well, Windows and my iTunes played nice.
Fast forward about a year. I get a new iPod Touch, and am syncing the songs for the first time after a restore of my computer, during which I copied all my songs back on. However, I couldn't copy them onto my new iTouch, which was weird, since they worked on my nano fine. I kept getting warnings that my songs could not be copied because they were not authorized! Mind you, I could play these songs fine on my PC and mac, and they were both listed as "AAC Audio File" (read: unprotected)
What gives!
Eventually, I decided to use the last dollar credited to my now unused iTMS account to purchase a song just to try it out. Turns out, after I reauthorized the protected aac, all the unprotected AAC files copied right over! No more error messages! Perfect!
Except, what does this mean? Is apple DRM tagging files from the library, onto the CD, and then back again as they get imported? Do they know everyone who has shared these covertly DRM'd files? Can they turn them off at a moment's notice? And why could I play them in my library and not on my iPod?
Well, I have no real explanation. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this unusual experience. Maybe some of you have had a similar problem. I guess this is the 99¢ solution.
