Convert Songs From Apple iTunes Format (DRM)
I love my iPod and the iTunes Music Store is truly “the killer app.” I love the convenience of being able to buy “that one song” that I remember from 1978 without having to buy an entire album.
The iTunes software itself is a mixed bag. It’s slow starting up and it uses a lot of memory compared to other music players. I’d like to be able to listen to music I’ve purchased without having to run the iTunes program. I would also like to be able to listen to the songs I bought from the iTunes Music Store on something other than my iPod. This part of the hack will show you how to strip the digital rights management (DRM) features from your purchased music so that you can choose the time and place you listen to your music.
This hack will discuss technical aspects of doing this. I won’t discuss the legal or ethical issues related to digital music because I’m a simple country engineer, not a lawyer. I might not have legal training, but I’m a pretty fair judge of what is right and what isn’t. The tools I am about to describe might be able to be used by some to step over the line from fair use to something that is not legal. Just remember, just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should. The software used in this hack is called iOpener, and it
can be found at
http://hymn-project.org/download.php
If that site disappears, you might need to rely on Google or another search engine to find it. Download the binary version of the program, not the source files. The filename will be something like iOpener-2-setup.zip.
