Can I download songs I purchase from itunes to any mp4 player?

Question

My mp4 player is a cheap no-name brand one I bought from Ebay in Jan '07. It doesn't seem to like DRM coded songs (even though paid for and downloaded legally)
If anyone could suggest an alternative site to download albums legally and ethically (ie the artist receives some royalties from each download) onto any MP4 player, I'd also be grateful.

Answer 1

No. The DRM used in iTunes is not licensed to anybody, so it only works with the iPod. There's not many services that are DRM-free, and the ones that don't have DRM usually have limited selection. Emusic is the largest (no major labels but many smaller ones) but you have to buy a certain number of songs minimum every month.

Also, I think iTunes uses m4p, not mp4 (which is usually used for video, not music; music is more commonly in mp3 format). If you have an AAC player (rare), you might be able to remove iTunes DRM with [see the Wikipedia article on Fairplay for info]. You could also burn to a CD and re-rip at a quality loss.

Answer 2

You can usually burn the files in iTunes to a CD, then rip them again to MP3 (or MP4 format, don't know why you'd want that for an audio file though) using another music ripping program. You'll need to enter the album info and ID3 tags yourself, though some programs (like Windows Media Player and CDEX) have built in tools for automatically finding and applying album info.

Just note that you'll lose some audio quality doing this. Also, make sure Volume Normalization is turned off in iTunes, otherwise songs will be like ten times softer than what they should be, and that results in a quieter song and additional quality loss.

Answer 3

Pretty much all media bought from the Apple iTunes store is protected using FairPlay technology, a type of DRM (Digital Rights Management) that prevents you from playing the content on any non-Apple approved device.

This Wikipedia article lists a few methods of stripping FairPlay:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay

Because of resistance from the major record labels almost all commercially available music sold online is protected by DRM. There are a number of sites however that sell DRM-free music but only from independent artists and minor labels.

I have heard that emusic.com is an excellent DRM free music store, though I haven't tried it myself.

http://www.emusic.com/

Answer 4

Straight from the program - no.
Burning the purchased music to an audio CD and importing it then back with iTunes allows you to then use the music the way you want with any player.