Update:  It seems QTFairUse has disappeared and the last version around only works on iTunes 6 - it looks like the only way for now is to burn to a CD and then re-rip the music - crazy.

The iTunes shop allows you to purchase and download music legally - it is also cheaper than going out to a music store and buying a CD.  But what do you do when you want to listen to your music on a non-Apple device?  Perhaps you want to listen to your music purchases on your funky mp3 player or new phone?  Perhaps you want want to listen to your iTunes songs while running an operating system that doesn’t have iTunes in it (like Linux!)?

Apple have well and truly cornered the market if they can convince people to buy music that will play only on Apple devices.  There’s no official way of listening to your own music on non-Apple devices.

However there is some software that works with the latest iTunes to strip the Digital Rights Management (DRM) data and decrypt protected songs - basically an m4p to m4a converter (m4p is an mpeg4 protected file, m4a is an mpeg4 audio file without protection).  Rather than processing the file and trying to decrypt it this software opens iTunes and attempts to play it and then copies the sound data frame-by-frame from the sound card and then outputs it as an m4a file.  m4a files can easily be converted to mp3 files.

The software is called QTFairUse but as of February 20th 2008 you’ll need to do some searching to retrieve it - probably from a cache somewhere - as it recently became subject of an Apple cease-and-desist order.  The software in no way breaks the law and the makers of the software are VERY anti-piracy, but since the software could be used to infringe Apple’s copyright, because Apple have lawyers and and lots of money the makers of the software have no choice but to back down.  Perhaps we shouldn’t own knives or bolt cutters - they could be used to break the law but generally people use them legally.  As far as I’m concerned so long as I don’t distribute something protected by copyright then it is mine to do with as I please.  Apple Capitalists 1, Good Guys 0.

Of course the real solution is an open source DRM.  Remember there’s “no security in obscurity”, meaning that a locking system should never be less secure simply because people know how it works - the lock can only ever be open or closed with the key.  This is a fundamental of digital security - the locking mechanism itself can be open source - you could read it line by line but it wouldn’t make a difference without the digital key it should be uncrackable.  This Open Source DRM system could be shared with everyone from manufacturers to encoders.  Apple wouldn’t lose their place as music providers as they’re the only ones that are allowed to distribute music from the big companies right now.  The only potential risk is that people would write software that would strip out the Open Source DRM, but how is that different to the current situation?  People are writing software that does that anyway…

Apple decided to use their own propriatory DRM and kept it to themselves - who knows how secure it actually is, though no-one has cracked it yet - and since they refuse to share it with anyone then if you buy from Apple you’re stuck with apple.  Apple won’t make an iTunes for linux as that would enable more people to move to a cost-free operating system - something that both Microsoft and Apple must avoid at all costs.  That said, earlier versions of iTunes did have some functionality in linux under the wine (windows emulator).

Back to QTFairUse.  Should you want to strip the DRM from your protected iTunes songs and if you can get a hold of the program then make sure that the songs you want to convert are in your iTunes Library and make a backup before you do anything!  Then fire up QTFairUse and it is all pretty straightforward from there.  The only problems I’ve had with it is that it creates duplicate links to files in your Library which means you need to try to play the files to work out which links are no longer valid (once you try to play them they’ll have an exclamation mark next to them) - it just takes a second per file or so to find and delete the invalid link but if you convert a thousand files then set aside some time to do this.

If the links get really messed up you can always remove the files from your library (don’t delete the actual files obviously, just the library’s links to them) and then reimport the lot.

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