Subterfuge and Skulduggery
Last week, Apple announced the release of iTunes for us benighted souls in the Windows universe. They have 350,000 to 400,000 songs available for $.99 apiece. I downloaded the software out of curiosity and purchased a couple of songs.
The music you download is not in the .mp3 format you might be familiar with from your carefree days of music piracy (a period that may rival the pre-AIDS era of free love in terms of nostalgic sentiment) � it�s in a proprietary format that can only be played by the iTunes software and Apple�s iPod portable player. Since I don�t have an iPod (I have an Archos Recorder 20), I need to find a way to convert the Apple tunes to .mp3 format if I�m going to use the service.
Apple�s software will rip someone ELSE�S music on cd to .mp3 without compunction, but refuses to convert its own downloaded music. It will, however, allow you to burn the tunes to cd up to 10 times, I think. So, I decided to try this just to see what file format ended up on the cd. Turns out, it�s the normal .cda format, so my next step was to open up my Musicmatch player and see if I could rip the files on the cd to mp3. Worked like a charm! (The Apple software, as I mentioned, will also rip cds to mp3, but I was afraid it might catch on to my ruse and shut me down.)
I never thought that it was OK to steal music on the internet, but I thought the Napster and Audiogalaxy services were great ways to sample music before purchase, and also to obtain live performances and bootleg stuff that were never available commercially in the first place. I will aver that I have purchased nearly all of the music in my possession. Still, I imagine that Apple and the RIAA in time will find a way to convince Ashcroft that what I�ve done with my iTunes songs is a terrorist act punishable under the Patriot Act, but right now it�s still a way to obtain music online and use it legitimately. If anyone knows an easier way to go about this, I’m all ears.
