Sorry for the cross-post, but I believe that this is a very important issue of keen interest to anyone who purchases music from the iTunes Music Store but doesn't own an iPod. Even if you do own an iPod, you should be aware of how Apple's Digital Rights Management (DRM), generous though it may be relative to similar systems, tends to curtail your rights as a consumer to do as you wish with the music that you legitimately paid for and acquired.

I invite you to read my post (http://www.pinoymac.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11904#11904) on PinoyMac, and solicit your reactions either there or here in this thread. Thanks. :)

[Edited on 5-6-2004 by gonz]

Update: the PlayFair project is back online, after a short hiatus that resulted from a cease and desist letter from Apple. The name has been changed to hymn, which stands for Hear Your Music Anywhere (http://hymn-project.org).

http://hymn-project.org/

This is good news for anyone who believes that they should be able to do whatever they want with the music that they legitimately pay for, and not have their fair use rights as consumers restricted by the provider/publisher.

Currently there are limits set on the songs you purchase from the iTunes Music Store. You may only play them on up to five authorized computers. They come to you in protected AAC format, which may not be easily converted to an unprotected format. At this time, only the iPod supports playback of protected AAC files. This is particularly inconvenient for people like me, who have legally purchased many songs from the ITMS but do not own an iPod. I believe that I have a right to convert my legal song purchases to MP3 format so that I may enjoy them on my non-iPod MP3 player. hymn empowers me to do this.

Some caveats: currently there is only a hymn GUI for Mac OS X. On other systems hymn is accessible from the command line. However, hymn works easiest on Windows systems. On OS X and other non-Windows systems, you need to have an Apple iPod connected to the Mac on which you wish to use hymn.

I am currently transferring my legal ITMS purchases to my Windows XP box, and will test hymn. Will post results later on.

I got Hymn a few days ago and tried to use it. The program looks for m4p files but I don't know what these files are. So, how can I use this program on my mac?

not an answer, but just please note that the thread you're responding to is dated may 2004. i was surprised to see "gonz" return to the message board--he's martin gonsalvez, one of philmug's old stalwarts and founder of pinoymac.org ;)