[selowitch]

I am planning to wipe the hard drive of my G4 tower before donating to my son's school. The trouble is, a lot of my purchased iTunes music was originally downloaded to that machine. How do I make sure my rights/permissions to play all those songs stay alive on one of my other machines after I wipe the drive?

I'm RTFMing here, but please jump in with your caveats or comments as I do so!

What I also don't get is why iTunes searches for this soon-to-be-decommissioned computer when I want to play files ripped from CDs I own. What's up with that? I guess that must happen if I move/delete files using the UNIX filesystem or Apple GUI but not through the iTunes interface itself. That must make iTunes list files that aren't there anymore. Hmmmm.

[TETENAL]

What? Apple provides a frikiking video that explains how to de-authorise a Mac (and obviously you do it before you wipe the drive). You really should be able to understand it.

[ghporter]

I think all you'll have to do is deauthorize that computer. The license is supposed to be linked to the iTunes user account first, and the authorized computer second. FWIW, all of the computers I have authorized play all my downloads just fine, even when I deauthorize the computer I downloaded them with (as in I wiped the PC I downloaded the songs with, so first I deauthorized it "just in case" something bad happened during the rebuild process).

As for the other issue, I'm at a loss...

TETENAL, your input wasn't helpful. The video doesn't fully address licensing and DRM issues, just how to deauthorize a computer and how many computers you can have authorized at once. It isn't the clearest thing Apple has produced by a long way.

[selowitch]

Thanks, Porter. Can you deauthorize a computer without booting that machine up and launching iTunes, say, by using the iTMS account management interface?

[TETENAL]

The video clearly says that you can't de-authorise a computer without "booting and launching iTunes" (except once a year when your authorisation limit is full). So yes, it fully addresses licensing.

[pra9ab0y]

no its dosnt as it dosnt tell you how many computers can use the same ITMS account!!

Just so you know the max is 5 and you can email Apple once a year and ask them to deauthorize all accounts and you can authorize just the ones you want to use the account on keeping media just fine but unplayable on deauthorized machines.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by ashleyman 

no its dosnt as it dosnt tell you how many computers can use the same ITMS account!!

Yes, it does. She says "You can authorize up to 5 computers to play your music store purchases." at 00:00:18.

you can email Apple once a year and ask them to deauthorize all accounts.

You don't have to e-mail them (-> 00:01:15).

[ghporter]

You must run iTunes to deauthorize a computer, which is why you should do this before doing anything else like wiping the drive. I think you CAN email them to let them know you had a problem with a computer and want to deauthorize it, but I don't know how that works.

Unfortunately, I can't find the helpful video-can you post a link to it?

[pra9ab0y]

yeh please be so kind as to post a link!!