iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

What to Do with Music You’ve Bought

As you know, the iTunes Music store gives you a lot more freedom to use your downloaded songs than other music services. There are a few restrictions, though.

Play It on Three Computers

You can play Music Store–bought songs only on an authorized computer. Authorization is Apple’s copy protection scheme.

Between work, home, and the family network, not everyone spends time on just one computer these days. So Apple lets you play your Music Store songs on up to three computers at once: Macs, PCs, or any combination. You just need to type in your Apple user name and password on each computer. Each must make an Internet connection to relay the information back to Music Store headquarters.

Authorizing Computers

You authorized your first machine when you signed up for an Apple Account for the iTunes store.

To authorize a song to play on another computer, follow these steps:

1. Find the song you want to transfer.

   This step, of course, involves finding the song on your hard drive.

   Method 1: On the Mac, open your Home→Music→iTunes→iTunes Music folder; in Windows, open My Documents→My Music→iTunes→iTunes Music. Music Store files are easily recognizable by their .m4p file name extensions.

   UP TO SPEED AAC, Copy Protection, and You

   Apple’s AAC files are copy-protected, but not all AAC files are. Some, which you may have collected from other Websites, are freely copyable.

   How can you tell the difference?

   In iTunes, click the questionable track in the music library and then ...