I now have a new car which has an SD card 'hole' for music.

I am now trying to copy my legitimately purchased iTunes collection to an SD card.

Of course this is not possible as all the MP3 music files are protected.

iTunes will allow me to burn a CD however. I'm confused.

Is this fixable?

Don't look at me, I still think CD's are "new"…

Burn them to cd then rip to unprotected mp3 from the cd.

clubber – Member
Burn them to cd then rip to unprotected mp3 from the cd.

I'd not be wholly suprised if there wasn't some technical 'catch'

I may sound like a cynic but there is probably some clause in the Terms and Conditions that basically states that this is a glorified protectionist racket.

If everything you have in iTunes has been obtained via the iTunes store, then yes, it's protected. However, Apple allow a loophole in that you can select the tracks you want in a playlist of the appropriate size to fit on a CD or DVD, burn to disc, then re-RIP into iTunes, which will allow you to drag-and-drop onto the SD card. Any tracks that you RIP from borrowed or bought cd's will copy just fine. As most of my music comes from cd, I've copied onto SD cards for use on a Nokia N95 without problems.

Nope, definitely works.

If you're really stuck you could use an mp3 recorder which just records what's going through your sound card. Eg mp3mymp3

Ok guys thanks.

Increasingly becoming less convinced about 'virtual' purchases.

Nothing beats paying your money and getting a product in your hand….like prostitution versus internet porn.

Virtual purchases are fine, provided you do good backups, preferably onto disc, in which case you might as well buy the cd. You can get cd's so cheap on line, I scanned the barcodes of a couple of cd's in HMV with my phone this afternoon that were around £14-16. Play.com had them for around £5-6…

Buy your downloads from Amazon – usually cheaper and they arrive in iTune + unprotected MP3 format (I think)

You can buy unprotected files form iTunes too, although they do cost a bit more.

The only thing that has stopped iTunes Music Store selling unprotected music was the record companies. That is now drawing to a close and I ahve been able to swop most of my many store purchases from protected mp4 (.m4p) to mp4 ( .m4a). Many digital music players of calibre that are not shackled to microsoft software now play mp4 such as most Sony Media Players and phones.

Your car player should support mp4. If it does not you can find software to re-rip mp4 to mp3, doing so may reduce the quality of the music but possibly not detectable to a car audio system. You would be better not deleting the original files as they will be a higher quality and keeping a seperate supply of your converted mp3's outside of iTunes and just copying them to your SD card as needed.

I have an excessively large music collection, the material portion of which began swamping the house interior many years ago. By embracing digital files for all new purchases I can keep 90 days worth of music in a box the size of a pack of tabs which is less than the space 4 cd's take. On the other hand as with the Doors Remastered cd/dvd reissue, the recent remastered collection of the catalogue of Kraftwerk and the CD set of each single in original sleeve released by the Clash I went online and bought the physical version in their limited edition collectors editions making a worthwhile item of home decor and eye candy

ITunes music files haven't been DRM protected for a while now, however they are recorded in the superior AAC format which not all players can handle.

The easiest solutions are the ones that clubber has mentioned.

You can't blame age…