[im_noahselby]

I'd like to start buying music from the ITMS, but am worried about the following:

1) Does Apple limit the ammount of Macs that you can transfer your ITMS bought songs to? If so how does this work?

I think I remember reading somewhere that you can only transfer to a maximum of 3 Macs, than you are no longer able to tranfer your ITMS bought songs to another Mac. This was to protect the ACC bought songs from appearing on hundreds of different computers. Realisticaly, I'm thinking ahead, and I wouldn't want to purchase songs now, that wont be able to transfer to my fourth new mac, years from now. So is their a limit? How does this work?


2) If I delete my OS and start over with a clean install, lets say I still have all my music on my iPod. Will I be able to just plug my iPod into my Mac and all my music will automatically be downloaded into my iTunes music library?



3) If I were to do a clean install "three?" times on a single computer, would I no longer be able to download these ITMS songs from my iPod to my Mac?

If someone could clear up some of my confusion and uncertainty, I would appreciate it very much.

Thanks,
Noah

[cpac]

Originally posted by im_noahselby:
1) Does Apple limit the ammount of Macs that you can transfer your ITMS bought songs to? If so how does this work?

You can only authorize it on 3 Macs *at a time.* If you have 3 Macs on which your music is authorized, and you buy a new one, you just have to de-authorize one of the old ones to play the music on the new one.

2) If I delete my OS and start over with a clean install, lets say I still have all my music on my iPod. Will I be able to just plug my iPod into my Mac and all my music will automatically be downloaded into my iTunes music library?

No. You will need to back up your music (and any other files) before you wipe your hard drive. If you erase your copy of the music, it's gone.

That said, there are utilities that allow you to rip music from your iPod, but iTunes will not do this directly.

3) If I were to do a clean install "three?" times on a single computer, would I no longer be able to download these ITMS songs from my iPod to my Mac?

In light of the answers to 1 & 2, this doesn't make sense.

[Nebagakid]

1. It limits it to 5 computers at a time, but you can authenticate and de-authenticate as many times as you want.

2. No, but there are ways to get files off your iPod.

3. the iPod is a one way street (officially) you can download from Mac -> iPod but not iPod -> Mac. sorry.

[torifile]

Umm. You can play the music on 5 computers at a time. That is, upto 5 computers can be authorized. It USED to be 3, but they upped the limit to 5 when they cut the number of burns/playlist to 7.

There are ways to get music off your iPod but it's easier to just backup the files first.

[chabig]

It doesn't matter if you wipe your hard drive and reinstall, the computer only uses one authorization.

Chris

[im_noahselby]

4) Are the ITMS song files changed themselves to monitor how many times they have been burned or copied to a different computer. Or are there other related files within the home directory "Music" folder that keep track of this information?


5) What is the most effective way of backing up your music? Would just backing up the folder located in the home directory called "Music" be sufficient? Lets say I planned to do a clean install.

(For example, would copying the "Music" folder from 10.3, then saving it onto a HD and then dragging it into 10.4 work without any issues?)


6) Does Apple keep a record of the songs you've purchased from them, so that if for some reason you lose them, you could re-download them at no cost?


7) What happens if a song gets interupted in the middle of a download, or only half of the song is downloaded?


I just want to ensure that I understand the steps I need to take so that I don't ever risk losing my music, especially songs that I have bought thru the ITMS.

Thanks,
Noah

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by im_noahselby:
I'd like to start buying music from the ITMS, but am worried about the following:

1) Does Apple limit the ammount of Macs that you can transfer your ITMS bought songs to? If so how does this work?

You can authorize 5 computers at a time to play your music. If you sell or scrap one computer you need to deauthorize it beforehand.

5) What is the most effective way of backing up your music? Would just backing up the folder located in the home directory called "Music" be sufficient? Lets say I planned to do a clean install.

You need to backup the music files. Usually they are all in the Music folder (but iTunes can be set not to organize your music in there). I suggest you backup all your purchased music to CD as original data files (not Audio CDs).

6) Does Apple keep a record of the songs you've purchased from them, so that if for some reason you lose them, you could re-download them at no cost?

Apple probably keeps a record of music you bought, but you can not redownload it. You must backup your purchased music.

7) What happens if a song gets interupted in the middle of a download, or only half of the song is downloaded?

Then you can re-try downloading it until it is completely downloaded.

[bgotori]

Hey im_noahselby



7) What happens if a song gets interupted in the middle of a download, or only half of the song is downloaded?


I download Multi Books using a Dial-up, when I need to do something else and have to shutdown the computer, I just dial-up again and restart the download. No Problems so far, been doing this since iTune 4.7.1 been out.


Have a Great One!!!

Brad