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- crackedplastic, on 10/10/2007, -5/+60Nothing new in the blog (spam). Basically explained QTFairUse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QTFairUse
- Jakyll, on 10/14/2007, -0/+53Here's a summary:
For Mac: Use DRMDumpster
For PC: Use QTFairplay - atown44, on 10/10/2007, -1/+26Google Cache:
http://72.14.209.104/search?hs=sUq&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fmostlysavingmoney.com%2F2007%2F06%2Fhow-to-break-itunes-drm%2F&btnG=Search - SeBBBe, on 10/10/2007, -3/+27"[iTunes is] the only legal place to buy files that play on iPods"
This guy really knows his iPods! - lendrick, on 10/10/2007, -10/+34I managed to catch it before it ***** itself:
June 17, 2007
How To Break iTunes DRM
A lot of people complain about the DRM found on music bought at the iTunes Music Store. This is quite natural, since iTunes is by far the biggest supplier of music files, and the only legal place to buy files that play on iPods. iTunes only allows you to upload the files to a few iPods, burn them to a few CDs, and play them on a few computers. And you can only upload files to your iPods, if someone else’s iPod is set to play music from their account, the only way to put music from your account into their iPod is to re-set that iPod to your account (which requires erasing all the music in it). And if you want to get music down from an iPod, then this is basically impossible.
You can burn your iTunes purchased song to CD, then rip the CD, but this wastes CDs, takes a while, and can only be done with about 20 songs at a time. You then have to find all the playlists that include each song and replace each iTunes purchased song by each CD-ripped song in each playlist. In other words, it’s a big hassle, plus you lose sound quality, the CD is a lossless copy of the iTunes file (which is AAC-encoded), but once the CD track is encoded into MP3 (or back into AAC), it is compressed again, so quality is lost. Unless you import the CD as WAV files, which are way too big, and would reduce the number of songs your iPod can hold (and increase the hard disk space used by your song collection) by a factor of 10.
So, what can we do?
Well, if you have a Mac, you have two other options, both of them also lossy. One is to put the iTunes-purchased song into an otherwise-empty iMovie movie, and then save it as an MP3. This has to be done one song at a time, although there are programs like FairGame that do it automatically for many songs (i.e. you tell the program what files to convert, and it converts all of them using the iMovie converting engine, instead of having you do it one at a time). It’s not lossless (unless you save the files as .WAVs), and is even bigger a hassle than burning and ripping CDs (you still have to replace each iTunes-purchased song in all the playlists where it appears, etc). The other option is a free program called DrmDumpster. It burns your songs into CDs and then rips them…and if you have a re-writable CD in there (CD-RW), it then erases the CD and burns more songs and rips them, and erases the CD again and burns more songs and rips them, etc. So you don’t have to sit there and baby-sit the computer and keep inserting new CDs - it burns all your purchased songs and rips them, using the same CD over and over, all by itself. Again, it’s not lossless, but if you have a Mac, it’s the best option.
What if you have a Windows computer ? What if you want lossless conversion ? Even better, what if you want a program that converts all your songs, and then looks through your library and replaces all playlist occurrences of each iTunes-purchased song it converted ? That would be ideal, and lucky for us, there are 2 programs out there that do just that (and they’re free!).
One such program is QTFairUse. All you have to do is open it, adjust the settings if you want (to get lossless compression, set it to output AAC files instead of MP3s), pick a back-up folder (after it’s done making non-DRM’ed versions of your iTunes-purchased files, it replaces those files in your library/playlists by the non-DRM’ed versions, and removes the DRM’ed files from your library folders), and start the conversion. It will open up iTunes, use it to play the files (at up to 10x their speed, so it should take about 20 seconds per song), record the files AAC stream as they play (i.e. the information that is encrypted by the DRM but that has to be decrypted by iTunes to play the files), and save a non-DRM’ed copy of each file. After finishing all that, it will go through your library/playlists, replace each DRM’ed song with the corresponding non-DRM’ed copy it just made, and finally dump all the old DRM’ed files into the folder you specified. You don’t even need to install the program, just download the .zip file and open up the .exe inside it and the program runs! Nothing could be easier, just make sure you have the latest version of this program and the right version of iTunes.
Now Let’s Get Started
How to use QTFairUse to losslessly remove all the DRM from your iTunes collection
(and automatically substitute your old DRM’ed files by the new non-DRM’ed ones)
*Go to hymn-project.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1553
*Right-click on hymn-project.org/download/QTFairUse6-2.5.zip
*Choose “Save Target As” (Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As” (FireFox)
*Specify the directory to which it will be saved. Say, your desktop, your C: drive, the “My Documents” folder, wherever. Click “Save”.
*Double-click on the .ZIP file that just appeared on your desktop (or wherever you saved it to). See all the little icons? Hit Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+C (this will highlight all the icons and copy them)
*Go to your desktop. Right-click on empty space (on the background image). Hover your mouse over New, and click on Folder. Type QTFU and press Enter, then press Enter again. You are now in a new folder you created for QTFairUse.
*Hit Ctrl+V. That will paste those icons from the .ZIP file into your new folder.
*Double-click on the QTFairUse6 executable (its icon looks like a window, with a grey frame and a blue bar on top). The program will open.
*If you wish, on the text field near bottom, specify which folder you want your old DRM’ed files to be dumped into after they are replaced by the new non-DRM’ed files this program creates. By default, the program will create a folder called “backups” inside the same folder where the QTFairUse6 executable file is (which, if you followed my instructions, is the QTFU folder on the desktop). The default is fine for now. (After the program runs, you can move the files from there to the backup directory/device of your choice, if you want).
*Click “Start Conversion”.
*The program will ask you if you want it to create the backups folder. Click on “Yes”.
*The program will run. It will start iTunes, minimize it, convert your protected songs (about 20 seconds for each song), fix your library/playlists (substitute every appearance of each DRM’ed file in your playlists by its new non-DRM’ed equivalent), and dump the DRM’ed files in that backups folder. A window will pop up to say it “finished conversion”, and you can press OK.
*That’s it, you can close the QTFairUse window. You can verify that all your DRM’ed songs are in the backups folder, and if you want, you can move them to the backup location of your choice (like burn a data CD, put them in an external hard drive, however it is you back up your files). You can verify that your purchased iTunes songs are now unprotected (go to itunes, click on “Purchased” on the left, and view the filetypes by right-clicking on “Name” at the top of your list of songs and then checking “Kind”. All the files should have “AAC audio file” as their Kind. Files that have not been converted (i.e. files that you purchase from iTunes) have “Protected AAC audio file” as their Kind. (Files that have “Protected MMPEG-4 video file” as their Kind are videos purchased from iTunes, QTFairUse will not un-DRM those videos.
*The next time you buy more music from the iTunes Music Store and want to un-DRM it, repeat steps 8-13 (or repeat all the steps, if for some reason you erased the QTFU folder or its contents after the conversion).
The technique described on this page should only be used for media that you already legitimately own. When you do buy a song you have the legal right to enjoy it on different platforms (e.g. buy an iTunes song and listen to it on your Zune or Creative Zen) and to back it up, even if this means making copies. So you may only use the technique above for that lawful purpose. To overcome DRM so you can enjoy your media on multiple devices and make back-ups, not to make files that are then sent to all your friends or into peer-to-peer networks. - Lennalf, on 10/10/2007, -2/+22WTF!? That's a lot of ***** to go through just to be able to freely use something you've paid money to download. Screw that. Don't buy DRM in the first place. Why pay somebody money so that you can spend your afternoon cracking their product? Boycott DRM!
- PhonicUK, on 10/10/2007, -3/+16You are what we like to call... A "N00bus-digguserus"
- bennomatic, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10"iTunes is by far the biggest supplier of music files, and the only legal place to buy files that play on iPods."
ACK! This is a lie! There are places like EMusic and AmieStreet that sell un-encumbered MP3s. I think that EMI is even selling non-DRM MP3s through other vendors (like Yahoo) that are traditionally WMP-only vendors.
Last, but not least, you can still buy the CD and rip your own content if you really want to.
I don't know where this myth keeps coming from that you can ONLY load iPods with iTunes music. I've got about 500 albums on my iPod, and about 480 of them are ripped from CDs that I owned many years before MP3 was even a gleam in Mr. Frauenhofer's eye. About 15 (mostly partial albums) are from iTunes and 5 are from AmieStreet (again, mostly partial albums).
Don't get me wrong; I hate DRM as much as the next guy, and I think that finding ways around it for fair use purposes is awesome. But there is no reason to perpetuate a negative myth. People were filling up their iPods with all sorts of content long before iTMS ever existed. - splatterboy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9I for one, thank you for posting TFA so we can see for ourselves just how useful/useless it is... unlike others. dugg up
- LoveWidescreen, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Yeah, but he obviously doesn't know about Magnatune, eMusic, and numerous other places that legally sell DRM-free music that -- shock! -- play on iPods.
- bdbr, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10They didn't say it was. They said its "the only legal place to buy files that play on iPods". Of course, that's not completly correct either (eMusic, for example), but it is correct for the most popular songs (unless you want to be REALLY pedantic and call a CD song a "file").
The other side of it is that the most popular songs are usually on CDs that are at least 80% crap. - phytonix, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9I don't break the DRM now. I only buy iTunes PLUS.
- crackedplastic, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Of course you realize that QTFairUse runs on Windows, don't you?
- aaronm67, on 10/14/2007, -0/+7...and either get crappy sounding insanely large files or get horrible sounding files about the same size as the ones you downloaded.
- blinkfink182, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Nice try chief, but the Apple instructions will make your already lossy songs more lossy, whereas the PC instructions will use the original audio stream without making it more lossy. Good shot though.
- skoles, on 10/10/2007, -12/+19Buy used CD's
Don't buy from iTunes
The article is ***** from the start. iTunes songs are not the only form of music your iPod can play. - jgreene777, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8it is a lossless copy of the ITUNES FILE, not the original file.
- aliguana, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7this is why I didn't start buying music from the iTMS until iTunesPlus came out. I'll never buy anything with DRM. I pity the people with HUGE iTunes collections, I really do. (I mean, I have a huge iTunes collection, but I didn't buy it from the store)
- superkendall, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Yes, and then they are converted forever - the problem is?
- sholt, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6and the artist doesn't get reimbursed... at all. Getting pennies on the dollar is still better than getting zilch.
- Lennalf, on 10/10/2007, -7/+13Here's my 2-step plan:
1) Don't pay for anything with DRM.
2) Don't use iTunes. - MellerTime, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Oh for the love of god... Ok, sure, he made a slightly inaccurate statement. We all knew what he meant, so can we please stop being a bunch of snotty dicks about it? It's the only online digital-download retailer to offer legal (in the US) sales of the vast majority of mainstream artists that can be played on your iPod. Happy now?
- mhanley, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9I think their implication was that the burned CD is a lossless copy of the AAC (which is already lossy). So the CD quality should be the same quality as the AAC.
- LoveWidescreen, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Fair enough. I didn't catch that either. *blush*
- jbreiding, on 10/26/2009, -0/+5define:TUTORAIL = A high speed transportation method for tutos.
- santeria49, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5QTFairUse has been around forever. Great program, but, this is pretty much old as dirt.
- HautePie, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8That's a GREAT way to get new releases!!!
- saleem, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5go watch a movie or two. maybe they'll help you, you know, stop crying.
- astrotrain, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5eMusic is great... that is if you like diverse music from all walks of life... I enjoy purchasing music from them, its DRM free.
- arbulus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4and it's only on CERTAIN artists that you have the option of the non-DRM version. You don't have the option on everything.
- compgeek, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5good for anyone that actually buys songs off iTunes however I think a lot of us on digg will attest to the fact that DRM free music is better always and forever
dugg for the way to get rid of the evil DRM - arbulus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4The artist doesn't get reimbursed for music you buy at a Used CD shop. What the hell is the difference?
- sholt, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5That still only gives you an uncompressed (decompressed) audio file though. Which you'd have to recompress manually, resulting in the same generational loss as the CD burning/ripping methods, which have the added benefit of preserving metadata.
- superkendall, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Yes, but the PC version results in a perfect copy.
There was a DRM stripper that worked on the Mac a few iTunes versions ago, but sadly that stopped working and non-one has come up with a replacement yet. - bethehammer, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Or you could have used allofmp3.com and downloaded them in any format for a fraction of the price legally.
- euro22, on 12/17/2008, -0/+43) www.thepiratebay.org
- aliguana, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4it's better because you can choose the bitrate you want your music encoded at. 128, 256, Apple-Lossless? No problem. Or how about encoding all three? Easy.
And exactly how is AAC evil? Its a far superior format to mp3 or ogg imo. AAC does not equal DRM. - LoveWidescreen, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6My SoundBlaster cards have come with a "What U Hear" line in the Windows mixer for years. Use any recording software to record the "What U Hear" track then save it. I've used this numerous times. It doesn't seem to be any more laborious than what's described above, and I can use this method to record streaming audio as well.
- Wildren, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4You can pay an extra 30 cents per song not to have DRM in them, or to un DRM them.
- MellerTime, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4If by no "more laborious than what's described above" you actually mean "painfully and horribly more laborious, error-prone, and time consuming as to be utterly useless" then yes, you are 100% correct.
- br0ck, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Don't you then have to retype all of the ID3 tag data?
- MacParrot, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Your comment gave me a good laugh...but I am easily amused. Dugg up
- arbulus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I see what you're trying to say meller, but it really doesn't provide any arguement. Any song you get from a p2p was purchased at some point by somebody.
Seriously, I have long had a problem with the argument against file sharing music and the pro-DRM crowd, when there are 5 or 6 used CD shops in my town. There is absolutely NO difference between p2p or BT and giving or selling your CDs to a shop who will then turn around and sell them at a profit with NO money going to the artist.
Say, I have a CD that I sell to a used CD shop. They give me five bucks for my Save Farris disc. They sell it for $10. No money goes to the artist in either transaction. Then the person who bought that CD decides that they don't want it anymore and gives it to another used CD shop who sells it for $10 again. This cycle can go on and on ad infinitum and no money will EVER go back to the artists. How is this ANY different from sharing a song on p2p?
I'll tell you: it is not one single bit different in any way, shape or form.
If we cannot share our music freely between each other, then used CD shops should be outlawed and all of them shut down. - arbulus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4You don't know what you are talking about when it comes to iTunes. iTunes is nothing like Rhapsody where you actually ARE renting your music. iTunes is NOT a subscription service and Steve Jobs made it clear that he does not want a subscription service nor does he want files to expire should you decide to delete iTunes. Yes, Rhapsody DOES disable files if you delete it and a few other services do that as well. iTunes does not.
- MellerTime, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4If only I could bury comments for Inaccuracy. You are most certainly not renting your music from the iTMS. It's not a subscription service, unlike others. Once you buy your music from the iTMS, it's yours forever.
Stop trying to be so uppity and superior and check your facts, please. - fuckinhell, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Just because it is out of your realm of understanding doesn't mean it's stupid.
What he is doing is lossless. Re-importing a CD degrades sound quality. I don't know about you but I would much rather preserve the quality of the music and not waste my time burning, re-encoding and reburning. This is something that can do your whole music collection without you having to dick around. - eliezerlp, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3No, you use FairUse4WM v1.3 Fix-2 for Ruckus and other DRM'd wma's
- aliguana, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3"The other side of it is that the most popular songs are usually on CDs that are at least 80% crap."
Well, if you're into buying Brittney and other pop crap, I'm not surprised. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3It's called Fair Use, and it's built in to iTunes. No hacks required.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3> Buy used CD's
> Don't buy from iTunes
Or, buy from iTunes, burn your own CDs.
It's the same difference, except one you get to do from the comfort of your own home. -
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