Topic awaiting preservation: Restoring iTunes Music

I've spent hundreds of dollars over the last few months purchasing songs directly from iTunes but recently I was forced to reformat my HD. Now all of my music is gone. Does anyone know if its possible to get this music back? I logged into my account in iTunes, but still nothing.

Thanks

Sorry Jestah.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93033

quote:

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...if your hard disk becomes damaged or you lose any of the music you've purchased, you'll have to buy any purchased music again to rebuild your library.

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Sucks when honest people like yourself who pay for their music get completly screwed over like this. I've had it happen to several of my customers now and it is never pretty.

That really sucks...

Does iTunes download in mp3 format, or something else?

From what I understand, iTunes has its own format - DRM (Digital Rights Management) to prevent unlimited copying of the music.

WS, sort of yes, Apple uses the format AAC with encryption to enforce DRM. Microsoft uses another technological solution in their media player to enforce DRM.

DRM is not a format in itself, it's a principle designed to help preserve the original authors rights to their work when distributed in a digital media.

As with all tech solutions to a human problem there is no way to cover all bases and angles so even if the basic thoughts behind it is good, there will always be times when DRM and similar ideas will stop things that would ordinarily fall under "fair use" in the public eye.

With that in mind, you can look at http://www.hymn-project.org/ Note that I'm not saying this is 100% legal, however I do believe that it's not 100% illegal either, that's why I post the link.
/D

{cell 260} {Blog}
-{ ?The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.? (-Barlow, John Perry) }-

I thought I tunes had a record of what you bought and you could re-download when needed... no?

frick.

And yah... funny thing about that encryption. I have an Iriver ihp mp3 player and it will not play any music bought from napster or Itunes until I burn it to a disk and then re-digitize it. I have not tryed any stripping programs... but that junk can be a bit of a bugger.

I think their newer mp3 players allow usage of some encrypted files.

DmS, thanks for the info, but I already know that. I just include all such measures under the name DRM.

Sony has its own, Apple has its own, M$, etc...it is still all DRM.

I know that Sony's format allows limited copying of the material (a few times). Doesn't iTunes?

Itunes allows you to put the file on five different computers. I usually have copies of my purchased music on my home computer and laptop. I burn DVDS as back ups from time to time. If you reinstall your OS, and then place the files on the same computer, itunes thinks its a new computer.

I recently reformatted and itunes wouldn't authorize my computer (I've been using the service now for a couple of years, done several re-installs on my comps). I wrote an email to support and they reset the authorizations on my account in about 48 hours. I was without the music for that time, but such is life.

You get unlimited use on ipods/shuffles, unlimited burns of any particular song but only seven burns of a given playlist.

I do have all of these songs saved on my iPod. Does anyone know if its possible to transfer everything over without iTunes overwriting everything?

Edit: If anyones wondering. I found a freeware program over at the ipodlounge.com that helped me fix everything.

(Edited by Jestah on 05-02-2005 00:55)

I bet your brething a big sigh of relief you had them all on on your iPod.

see my post here:
http://www.ozoneasylum.com/25654?mode=0&latestPost=true#latestPost

I have had good success recovering files using data recovery software. It works best if you havent written to that section of the drive yet. Also I think that for mp3 files, if a few bytes are off the whole file could be ruined.

[edit] n/m I see you pulled them off the ipod. I think when you plug in the ipod, you can browse files just like a hard drive. Glad you got it sorted out.


.frihani

"For one word a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We should be careful indeed what we say." - Confucious

(Edited by frihani on 05-02-2005 15:47)