These crazy hackers are moving fast these days, but Engadget has stayed in stride by providing a walk-through of myTunes, a GUI front-end to QTFairUse (sadly, Windows only - for now), that python code they mentioned earlier this week (not to be confused with any other products by the name of 'myTunes').A big downer for this app, however, is the way it works its DRM-be-gone magic: it can only work on tracks as they're played in real time. Even then, you're left with a file (sans any metadata like ratings or ID3 tags) which needs to be re-constructed into a playable AAC file with a second tool, though that process seems to take mere seconds per track. Engadget recommends letting the stripping process run overnight, so you can get a good 8 hours or so of unshackled music from each batch. Check out their walk-through for more instructions and ideas on how to optimize this process.
myTunes might not be pretty yet, but it sounds like the developer(s) have a polishing roadmap in place, including simplifying this to a one-step process. For now, it still is the only method we know of for setting your iTMS purchases free.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-01-2006 @ 4:43PM
matt said...
anyone got a mac method yet?
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9-01-2006 @ 4:52PM
JD said...
Sounds like they're exploiting the analog hole - this is definitely *nothing* special. The "file" you're left with without ID3 tags is most probably a standard .wav file, and the "second tool" is most probably an AAC encoder. This is the oldest trick in the book.
Nothing to see here, move along...
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9-01-2006 @ 4:59PM
TH said...
Hey, it's easier.
1. Burn a CD.
2. rip again.
3. There is no step 3
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9-01-2006 @ 5:02PM
LD said...
This is a lossless method. Neither post 2 or 3 are lossless methods.
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9-01-2006 @ 5:05PM
Alex said...
Audio Hijack
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/
Not free, but still, it works.
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9-01-2006 @ 5:13PM
mingistech said...
"Engadget recommends letting the stripping process run overnight, so you can get a good 8 hours or so of unshackled music from each batch."
It's quicker to just burn a CD then re-rip the tunes to your HDD. This hack blows.
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9-01-2006 @ 5:29PM
Tony said...
#4. Since iTMS files are already lossy, I'm sure that most people would find the burn-rip method more than adequate. Most people that are worried about loss will rip from a CD anyway, as iTMS AAC files are mediocre to begin with.
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9-01-2006 @ 5:41PM
John said...
There's another program called myTunes Redux.
Not the same thing, but I wonder if it's the same creator as this?
myTunes Redux is awesome, and lets you wirelessly download files from other people's shared libraries without their knowledge. It works great. So I've heard.
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9-01-2006 @ 6:33PM
kg said...
Lossless? Yeah. They may claim that it is, but all signs point to "phony" on this one. From the realtime-only conversion to the dropping of all meta-data (why, if you are truly hacking the file?), this is nothing but a play and record process. There is no reason for it to take *exactly* this long otherwise.
As mingistech says above, it makes more sense to burn your downloads to an audio CD (CD-RW to avoid waste) and re-rip. It's faster and you keep the meta-data. In both cases, you are going to have a middle stage of uncompressed audio and return to compressed audio at the end. There is no avoiding it.
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9-01-2006 @ 7:38PM
nfidel said...
use iMovie.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060725200656470
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9-01-2006 @ 9:20PM
Thrasher said...
I'm not an expert on the process they're using, but I believe it involves pulling the raw decrypted AAC data out of RAM. So yes it is lossless, and it's real time because the data is only pushed into RAM as the song plays.
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9-04-2006 @ 8:02AM
Sam said...
I agree with TH... I tried all kinds of recommended methods of converting the protected files, but the fool proof method is just to bung your tracks on an audio cd and rip them again... when you can get 100 CDR for less than a tenner, why bother spending ages converting them with two bits of software and so on.
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