I love iTunes.
Their selection – insane.
Their delivery – immediate.
Their quality – second to none.
The problem? DRM. The same software that allows Apple to satiate the idiotic industry only allows me to play the music I purchase on my iPod or in iTunes. Sure, I can dump the tracks to a CD (5 or 6 times) and then rip them back into iTunes… A loophole even Apple knows about. Perhaps the justification is that the effort and materials required for someone to convert a library composed of thousands of tracks would protect the Apple model of how things should work.
My problem? I paid for this stuff. $.99 a track, for music that Apple dictates I can only listen to HOW they say.
What a crock! Apple trumps the industry only to pull a dick move that only the record companies and their designated front end – the RIAA – could top. So I poked around on Google and found a program that’ll decrypt my tracks on the fly and allow me to listen to them however and whenever I want… ie with my Xbox 360 streaming the tracks through Zune.
I won’t go as far as naming the software I picked up, but it’s out there – it’s free – and it allows anyone to listen to tracks purchased even with the latest version of iTunes. I’ll keep my m4p’s protected and I promise I’ll never share them… that said, DRM can kiss my ass.
