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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Applications > purchased music from one laptop to another

purchased music from one laptop to another
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bbales
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Aug 2, 2011, 08:07 PM
 
Over the years, and yes, using my account, my kids have amassed a large selection of purchased itunes music. And over the years, as they've gone off to college, we've acquired new machines and hard drives have died, we've WAY passed the 5-machine limit.

So now, my youngest is going off to college. She wants the music, naturally. I want most of it off my own MacBook. I researched and tried one way (burning it in new playlists, reimporting it and transferring it) and it was a failure. None of the burned CDS (and I wasted a lot of time on this!) includes track names, album names, etc.

So -- how to do this? I can't really unathorize everything, I don't believe. Besides, I'm mightily peeved. I bought the darn music and I want to be able to use it. How do I strip the DRM from these tunes and get the music, PLUS all track info, from one MacBook to another?

Thanks much. I did look, honestly I did, but didn't get very far.
     
AKcrab
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Aug 2, 2011, 09:37 PM
 
Once per year you are allowed to de authorize ALL your machines.

Just use the network or firewire or an external hard drive to drag and drop the stuff you want from the one iTunes, and then drop it into the new iTunes.
     
bbales  (op)
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Aug 2, 2011, 10:02 PM
 
I swear I deauthorized everything once upon a time, but it might have been when I got this MacBook, which was in 2008. So maybe that's the answer.

If I drag and drop, will it save all the album and track names? Really? Haven't had much luck so far...
     
mduell
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Aug 2, 2011, 10:28 PM
 
Pay the 30% tax to upgrade all your $0.99 music to DRM free.

Copy the files. Album/track names are embedded in the files, not in the library.
     
TETENAL
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Aug 2, 2011, 10:45 PM
 
You don't have to pay that tax.

In iTunes log into your account by clicking onto your e-mail in the top right of the iTunes store. There you can deactivate all (five) activated computers. You do not need access to these computers, so it doesn't matter if they are sold, broken or whatever. You can then reactivate all computers where you want to play the music on one by one.

To transfer the music to other computers copy the songs onto an external hard drive or USB thumb drive and then onto the other computer. Album/track names go with the song files.
     
bbales  (op)
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Aug 3, 2011, 09:51 AM
 
I am most definitely not paying the tax/extortion. I will try the deauthorizing/reauthorizing again (as I said, I did it quite some time ago -- and one of the songs I purchased STILL won't play on my laptop.) But I'll give it another try. Thanks much. And MDuell, I'll copy the files and not just drag them from playlists.

I remember reading many years ago, probably at the beginning of iTunes, that people should immediately burn a CD of purchased music and then reimport the songs back into their library to strip out the rights right away.
     
mduell
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Aug 3, 2011, 12:42 PM
 
Continuing to use one iTunes account for the whole family seems misguided. While new music you buy is DRM free, every video/movie/app any of you buy will continue to be DRM'd and tied to the family account.

IOW it will never be less painful to cut the cord and split everyone into their own accounts. You have to upgrade your non-iTunes Plus music ($0.30/song) and re-buy everything else (videos, movies, and apps).
     
bbales  (op)
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Aug 3, 2011, 06:29 PM
 
I think the split might be the way to go. It definitely is for everything from this point forward. Fortunately, nothing has been purchased from the App Store yet, so the only issue really is the music. And I'm hoping I'm still able to strip that stuff. IN any case, re-authorizing will probably work for that; one kid already has her own account and two more are about to!
     
   
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