Transferring Music from iPod to Computer
Apple sold 4.58 million iPods during the 4th quarter of 2004. That works out to 38,000 devices per day...and that's before the $99 iPod shuffle hit the streets. That's a lot of potential storage space for music. It's also a lot of potentially frustrated owners who are bumping into the one thing that is not "insanely great" about the iPod, getting music transferred from the player to a second computer.
OK, I can see the red flags going up. Copying music from an iPod to a computer that's not its "primary host was made intentionally difficult to prevent easy pirating of copyrighted music. No honest person will quibble with that goal. However, the end result is that it also makes it difficult for honest people to make legitimate copies of the music they own. If you have both a desktop and a notebook computer, you have to choose where you'll listen to your music. Likewise, if you lose a hard drive with your iTunes collection, you're out of luck even though you have the whole collection on your iPod.
Fortunately, there are relatively simple and inexpensive workarounds for this problem, and they are well documented in this article from Playlist Magazine. The article discusses alternative approaches for both Mac and Windows users. Follow the steps and you'll once again be able to take control of the music you own.
Yep, and you can do the same thing with iTunes/iPods. I've ripped a bunch of old vinyl LPs and loaded them on my iPod, as well as burned 'em to CD. Totally portable. It's just that moving music from the iPod to something else has an additional but easily overcome obstacle.
Posted by: Eric at February 8, 2005 09:55 PMWhat about buying from the Apple store? Any restrictioons on movement?
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at February 9, 2005 11:46 AMNo legal restriction; you own the music, so it's just subject to the usual copyright stuff. However...since all ITMS music is in AAC format, you either have to play it on an iPod or in iTunes (or via compatible players), or convert it to a different format for playing elsewhere.
Posted by: Eric at February 9, 2005 12:09 PMAbout the publisher
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I've gone and deinstalled MusicMatch because of the DRM involved with purchasing music online. If I rip my own stuff with WinAmp, I can move it around where ever I want, whether it's a network drive, an MP3 player, a new laptop, etc.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at February 8, 2005 09:37 PM