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iTunes authorizations: can you do better than 5?
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Long Island
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We have 8 Macs in my house, a laptop and desktop for each of the 4 members of my family.
We all use one iTunes account to buy our music and videos from iTunes, we would use bit torrent more, but we got so many iTunes music cards for Christmas this past year.
Is there any way to authorize more than 5 machines for iTunes so we can have a library with purchased music on every machine?
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I miss the days of the G5 and XPS Pentium 4 running side by side as high-end machines.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Northwest Ohio
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Originally Posted by Googer-Giger 
We have 8 Macs in my house, a laptop and desktop for each of the 4 members of my family.
We all use one iTunes account to buy our music and videos from iTunes, we would use bit torrent more, but we got so many iTunes music cards for Christmas this past year.
Is there any way to authorize more than 5 machines for iTunes so we can have a library with purchased music on every machine?
Nope. Can't do it. Each person should choose one of their two computers to keep their music library on.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Houston, TX
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Yes, but with limitations.
I wonder if this can even be discussed here... the mods usually frown upon discussions that relate to violating 'licenses'.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Long Island
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I guess in some form it is illegal, thanks anyway.
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I miss the days of the G5 and XPS Pentium 4 running side by side as high-end machines.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Northwest Ohio
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Originally Posted by mduell
Yes, but with limitations.
I wonder if this can even be discussed here... the mods usually frown upon discussions that relate to violating 'licenses'.
Rather severe limitations, I'd say. You can only reset authorizations when 5 computers are authorized and then only once a year. What happens if one of the not authorized computers becomes deauthorized from within iTunes? It happens more often than you'd think.
Not a viable solution. Hence, why I said no.
Besides, he said each family member has a desktop and a laptop. What is so hard about each one choosing ONE of those computers as their music machine?
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Moderator  Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Polwaristan
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Man, that's a lot of Macs per user in a family.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: BFE
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Yes, of course you can. You export to CD then re-import. Pain in the butt, but it is legal.
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I'm a bird. I am the 1% (of pets).
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Moderator  Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
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Well, you could upgrade your music to DRM-free songs and then use them on any Mac.
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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Yeah, defective by design. Sucks, eh?
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Brisbane, Australia
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Originally Posted by OreoCookie
Well, you could upgrade your music to DRM-free songs and then use them on any Mac.
That only works for EMI-songs (and not even all of them). I could only upgrade one album, one EP and a handful of songs out of my 375 purchases.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: London
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Originally Posted by Eriamjh
Yes, of course you can. You export to CD then re-import. Pain in the butt, but it is legal.
Yeah thats the way i do it too!!! Not that much of a faff really!
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MacBook Pro 2.2 i7 | 4GB | 128GB SSD ~ 500GB+2TB Externals ~ iPhone 4 32GB
Canon 5DII | EF 24-105mm IS USM | EF 100-400mm L IS USM | 50mm 1.8mkII
iMac | Mac Mini | 42" Panasonic LED HDTV | PS3
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Administrator  Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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Originally Posted by peeb
Yeah, defective by design. Sucks, eh?
?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Apple didn't create the content; they license it. If they didn't do something to prevent that content from being trivially copied and distributed, they would probably have three sources for music: indies that nobody wants to hear about, works that lack copyright completely, and "demo" stuff. None of that would sell. The copyright owners (that's the record labels) refused to work with anyone unless they had some sort of solid method of preventing casual copyright violation. How is that defective?
Googer, as mduell points out, we frown on discussing ways to circumvent licensing schemes here; it's illegal in a lot of jurisdictions and unethical in all of 'em. Further, allowing that sort of discussions could make MacNN party to the inevitable RIAA intervention and we just won't allow that.
However, as Eriamjh points out you CAN export to CD and then reimport the songs YOU PAID FOR. It's not a big deal, though it can be time consuming. There's nothing I've found in any license text that says you can't do this.
My suggestion for this situation though is to limit everybody to keeping their licensed music on only one of their two computers. Four people, four computers, four authorizations.
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Last edited by ghporter; Jul 8, 2007 at 12:56 PM.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Moderator Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
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@ghporter
I don't quite agree here. There are legal ways to do this (streaming via iTunes or burning onto CD and reimporting the songs for instance) and I don't see anything unethical happening here either, a family wants to share its music amongst each other.
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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
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Administrator Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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The unethical part is using some technology to get iTunes to see more than five authorizations. While it may be a fine line to visualize, it's pretty clear when you look at the idealized way pirates distribute music. They don't burn/import, they simply copy files. If those copies will only work on a maximum of five computers, then the pirate goes somewhere else and the DRM has had the desired effect. Making iTunes work for more than five computers is illegal in the US and elsewhere, and it is unethical everywhere because it impedes this relatively benign version of DRM-and may cause the RIAA to demand more draconian forms of control before they recommend/allow labels to cooperate.
Rereading my post, I see that I wasn't very clear about this; I was kind of stupefied by peeb's comment and wasn't thinking as clearly as I'd like.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Moderator Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
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Originally Posted by ghporter
The unethical part is using some technology to get iTunes to see more than five authorizations.
In my book that may be illegal, but not necessarily unethical (there are even legal ways to go beyond this limitation). Bypassing that limitation to distribute your music to your 20 best friends is another thing though … There is a clear distinction between the letter of the law and its intention: the former says what's legal and what's not, the latter is about what is and isn't ethical. That's all I meant to say.
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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
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