[jbonta]

I dowloaded some songs from the itunes music store. But I want to be able to use the songs in final cut pro. So I open them up in quicktime pro (6.5.1), and "export..." is grayed out. Since I have cleaner 6, I tried exporting the file to a aiff redbook. It gets through the conversion, but the file that it creates is silent. The same thing happened when I tried using toast. Does anyone know what is messed up or what I'm doing wrong? Thanks.

[tooki]

Yeah, it's a protected file, so the behavior you describe is exactly as it should be.

The fix is just to burn an audio CD in iTunes, and then re-import that to whatever format you need.

tooki

[wataru]

...or use something like hymn. Or is that Too Hot For MacNN™?

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by wataru:
...or use something like hymn. Or is that Too Hot For MacNN™?

BAN HIM... BAN HIM!!!!!!

Oh, wait...

but seriously, just burn a CD, then eject it and import it... It's annoying, but don't blame Apple, blame the music industry.

[RayX]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
BAN HIM... BAN HIM!!!!!!

Oh, wait...

but seriously, just burn a CD, then eject it and import it... It's annoying, but don't blame Apple, blame the music industry.

Yes, but having to do that is a waste of time, and the resulting file will be even lower quality than the already low quality iTMS songs.

Use hymn or similar tools.

It is unfortunate that Apple had to play along with the music industrie's DRM shenanigans.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by RayX:
Yes, but having to do that is a waste of time, and the resulting file will be even lower quality than the already low quality iTMS songs.

Use hymn or similar tools.

It is unfortunate that Apple had to play along with the music industrie's DRM shenanigans.

Yah, but the quality loss isn't as horrible as some make it out to be. Use whatever, but it's what I tell most people to do.

[timmerk]

There are a few programs that can convert the file to aiff if you have the password to unlock the machine to make it authorized. There are some on versiontracker. In fact, Toast can do it without burning a cd - drag the aac to Toast, it converts, and make a image of the cd, then mount that. Something like that, i forgot, but have done it before)

[electropura]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Yah, but the quality loss isn't as horrible as some make it out to be. Use whatever, but it's what I tell most people to do.

There is no quality loss using this method. AIFF is an uncompressed format.
It wont be any worse than the original AAC file. No better, no worse.

You should only be using AIFF files in Final Cut Pro anyway. MP3's and AAC files are temporally compressed...they don't take to being edited easily and are not recommended for use in FCP.

If you don't want to mess around with Hymn, you should just pick up a CD-RW and have it handy for this purpose.

[bmedina]

Originally posted by electropura:
[B]There is no quality loss using this method. AIFF is an uncompressed format.
It wont be any worse than the original AAC file. No better, no worse.

You should only be using AIFF files in Final Cut Pro anyway. MP3's and AAC files are temporally compressed...they don't take to being edited easily and are not recommended for use in FCP.

Who said anything about FCP?

Edit: sorry, I can't read.

[Telusman]

Correct me if im wrong, but is this not just as bad as promoting piracy of software? I was under the impression that the license for the songs on ITMS is for personal use only, use of the song in Final Cut doesn't sound terribly personal but more a pre-cursor to using it commercially or for some other public display fashion....

Originally posted by tooki:
Yeah, it's a protected file, so the behavior you describe is exactly as it should be.

The fix is just to burn an audio CD in iTunes, and then re-import that to whatever format you need.

tooki

[wataru]

Originally posted by Telusman:
Correct me if im wrong, but is this not just as bad as promoting piracy of software? I was under the impression that the license for the songs on ITMS is for personal use only, use of the song in Final Cut doesn't sound terribly personal but more a pre-cursor to using it commercially or for some other public display fashion....

Is everything made in Final Cut inherently not personal? What if it's a home video or something like that? I think the case can be made for just as many possible valid uses as invalid ones, and we can (hopefully) all agree that something should not be prohibited just because of the possibility of misuse.

[milhous]

What you need is WireTap from Abrosia.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/freebies/

It will record output that's played from the sound buffer and once finished recording, you can trim and chop the file and save in any format you please.

One of the finest applications I've ever used.

[RayX]

Originally posted by electropura:
There is no quality loss using this method. AIFF is an uncompressed format.
It wont be any worse than the original AAC file. No better, no worse.

Was thinking that the file would be re-encoded after being ripped to AIFF (as a lot of people do usually, ack), but that wouldn't be the case here, you're right.

[Kristoff]

Originally posted by Telusman:
Correct me if im wrong, but is this not just as bad as promoting piracy of software? I was under the impression that the license for the songs on ITMS is for personal use only, use of the song in Final Cut doesn't sound terribly personal but more a pre-cursor to using it commercially or for some other public display fashion....

Do you work for the RIAA, SPA, or MPAA or something?

That's exactly the kind of logic that gets us all these stupid ass measures that infringe on fair use.

Is owning a gun promoting murder? Is it a pre-cursor to using it to kill somebody?

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by tooki:
The fix is just to burn an audio CD in iTunes, and then re-import that to whatever format you need.

Originally posted by Telusman:
Correct me if im wrong, but is this not just as bad as promoting piracy of software? I was under the impression that the license for the songs on ITMS is for personal use only, use of the song in Final Cut doesn't sound terribly personal but more a pre-cursor to using it commercially or for some other public display fashion....

Even if we assume the license terms are enforcable, is anyone really breaking the license terms here?

- The license permits you to burn an audio CD in iTunes.

- Re-importing to whatever format you need is not explicitly outlawed by the license. (IRRC, I don't have the license in front of me but I do actually read these things. I think the use of something like hymn, which decrypts the file outside of QuickTime, was outlawed in the latest license).

- Judging whether something is being copied for "personal use" can only be done on a case-by-case basis. Saying that all use in FCP is probably infringing because it's a "precursor to using it commercially" is just as bad as basing music piracy figures on the total number of CD-R's sold in a given year, without regard to what the CD-R's were actually used for.

Besides, this can't be compared directly with promoting software piracy due to the simple fact that jbonta paid for the song, and software piracy implies using the software without paying for it.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by dreilly1:
Besides, this can't be compared directly with promoting software piracy due to the simple fact that jbonta paid for the song, and software piracy implies using the software without paying for it.

Not necessarily - you can pay for one but install it ten times, make copies and give out to your friends, or worst of all make copies and sell them. All are piracy and involve a purchase of at least one license.

The valid issue raised was that he is not within his rights to use the song in a commercial context - FCP or otherwise (assuming he is using FCP in a commercial context).

I'm sure Apple could advise him on that after the "we tried to reach the artist but couldn't, so we used it anyway" fiasco (wasn't that eminem?).

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by absmiths:
Not necessarily - you can pay for one but install it ten times, make copies and give out to your friends, or worst of all make copies and sell them. All are piracy and involve a purchase of at least one license.

you're right, just paying for software or music doesn't automatically mean you can do whatever you want with it with no restrictions, I should have phrased my post better. But for the record, jbonta wasn't talking about burning ten copies of the CD and giving them away or selling them: he was talking about shifting the format of his legally-bought copy. His situation still has nothing to do with piracy.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by dreilly1:
he was talking about shifting the format of his legally-bought copy. His situation still has nothing to do with piracy.

That's a very unfortunate restriction of the iTMS license. If it weren't for the iPod, I don't think I would buy music there at all. Burning CDs is lame because you loose all pertinent ID tags.

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by absmiths:
That's a very unfortunate restriction of the iTMS license. If it weren't for the iPod, I don't think I would buy music there at all. Burning CDs is lame because you loose all pertinent ID tags.

I don't think you lose the ID tags, iTunes can reconstruct them from the GraceNote CDDB database -- all you need for that is the CD ID that is generated from the track lengths -- but I'll have to check that when I get home. (no Macs at work. )

<rant>
As for licenses, however, they're getting more and more restrictive all the time. If people actually took the time to read them, they'd be shocked to find out how little they actually bought. I think that most licenses (expecially shrink-wrapped and click-through licenses for software), in fact, try to take so many rights away from consumers that there's no possible way they can be legal.
</rant>