I’ve got a 120gig ipod with all my music on it from an old pc which has died. I have got a relatively new macbook pro with no music on it. Is there a way I can copy/back up my music from my ipod on to the macbook?

I seem to remember in days of yore this couldn’t be done. I also remember syncing a full ipod with a new computer and it wiped all the music from the ipod. I rarely ever use itunes, hence my stupidity and wariness of it.

thanks

It depends if the music on the ipod was purchased from itunes i think, as you can download the music which has been bought from them onto any device that is registered with your apple id, the problems come when the music is not bought from them i think 😕

Without using iTunes which will wipe it, use any of a number of free programs that will copy all the music off your iPod onto your pc. (Google is your friend here)

Then import copies music to iTunes

Okay, so I wasn’t just being overly cautious. I’ll have a google about for programs to copy my music onto the laptop. Thanks guys.

I can’t remember what I used, but I managed to wipe everything in my iTunes library once, about 74Gb, found an app that copied everything back from the Pod. The first one I tried would only allow a small number of tracks at a time, so I had a hunt on Google and found one that cost around $20, and did the job beautifully.
Got family around at the mo’, if I get a chance I’ll have a look later, see what I used.
There are quite a few around, you shouldn’t have any issues at all, in fact I think of my iPod as a back-up for iTunes, although it’s getting close to full up, now, at 155Gb. I’m really hoping Apple bring out a 256Gb Touch… 😉

Pretty sure a new install of iTunes can be used – but onlyif you set it NOT to sync.

Other progs (likethe old iPod Agent) are for getting stuff off the Pod without using iTunes.
Winamp does it anyway, so that might be worth a try.

This is exactly the kind of thing that put me off iTunes in the first place; it’s my music, Apple, sod off and let me sort it out. 😀

Crimes, its not necessarily your music. The first generation is yours, but as soon as you copy it, it’s not. Apple has done something good to negotiate with the music industry that when you buy music you can share it across all your devices, rather than buy it multiple times for each device, but you can’t share with others. The controls here is managed through iTunes, hence why you can’t copy back. If you could copy off you iPod then you could share that with anyone. So the second generation copy on your iPod is not yours. Only the first generation, I.e the cd you bought, or the copy you bought off iTunes, which you can download again. The best thing to do is retrieve your music off your hard drive, or re-rip off CDs into your new mac. I don’t know anything about software that claims to transfer music from your iPod, but if it works then great.

Did you just make all that up, or are you some legal expert on digital music? Cos it sounds like a bunch of balls to me.

itunes is rediculous, i mean, how Nieve of a company to make a legitimate task so diffficult and potentially destructive. you shouldnt have to research a simple task.
also in this day and age people want choice not tied into one bullshit product

wobbliscott
Crimes, its not necessarily your music. The first generation is yours, but as soon as you copy it, it’s not.

The vast majority of it is my music though. I had (note the past tense) a huge CD collection which I spent many months copying on to my pc using winamp I think it was. The bulk of the rest was from a mate who I lived with at uni, who had a similarly vast collection, which he had bought and paid for and I took what I liked.

If I had to guess I’d say 90% of the 80 gig on my ipod was totally legal and legit. fyi.

Dez where have you been? It’s always been illegal to copy your music – you don’t have to be a legal expert to have heard of Copyright – I.e it’s illegal to copy something that has been copyrighted for any reason. Impossible to police, so everyone has always done it. Before Apple and iTunes, it was illegal to copy digital music to your iPod and other MP3 players, and the music industry was fighting digital music and some CDs also had software embedded to prevent you from ripping CDs into iTunes. It’s not Apple being awkward. It’s legal stuff responsible companies have to adhere to. Apple negotiated with the music industry and It is now legal for you to purchase music once and copy multiple times to YOUR devices, but not transfer a 2nd gen copy from one device to another I.e the first gen copy held in iTunes. Again, impossible to police, so we’re back to square 1, but Apple has to have the measures within iTunes and iPods to prevent this, hence you can’t easily transfer music off an iPod to another device making it possible to share music with others – an infringement of Copyright, but clearly its not foolproof.