iLife '04: The Missing Manual

Copy It to Your iPod

Not only can you download your purchased songs to your iPod, but you can download it to unlimited numbers of iPods. Apple placed no copy restrictions on iPod joy.

Tip

If your iPod is a pre-2003 model, you must first update its software to version 1.3 or later. Otherwise, the iPod won’t recognize files in the AAC format.

When you buy a song, it lands in the iTunes playlist called Purchased Music. But you can easily drag it into other playlists you’ve concocted within iTunes. The songs, artists, and albums appear just like any other tracks in iTunes.

Burn It to a CD

You can also burn purchased tracks to blank CDs, so you can listen to them in the car or on the big component rack in the living room. Here, Apple has put in only one tiny, almost irrelevant form of copy protection: If you’ve made store-bought songs part of a certain playlist, you can’t burn more than seven CD copies of it in a row without making at least one change to the song list.

And if you find that limitation restrictive, you must be so dedicated a music pirate that you wear an eye patch and a parrot on your shoulder.

Share it Across the Network

You can also share purchased music tracks with other people on your same office network—by playing them live, not by copying the actual files. Details on page 40.

Back It Up

If your hard drive croaks and takes your entire music library with it, you have two alternatives. (a) Buy all of your Music Store songs all over again. (b) Calmly reach for the backup CD or ...