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How to Get Music Off Your iPod
ptorrone writes "Never did we think we'd need to do a How-To on something which should be part of the basic functionality of a portable music player, but once you put your tunes on an iPod unfortunately it's a one-way sync unless you know the tricks for getting them off. Here's how to get your stuff off for free on a Mac or PC and how to re-enable a useful tool with a Hex editor." Cory Doctorow has been writing about this on boingboing recently; he discusses Apple's message to iPod owners.
It's not that first time such 'backup' tool is available, and it's also not the first time Apple found ways to neutralize such tool by way of a new version.
Additionally, it's relatively easy (compared to ripping CDs) to do it on iPod because Apple basically owns the device and its content, and they can do a lot to force users to comply. iPod doesn't need to follow a standard format (like CDs must play in all CD players), they can set/change the format to suit.
The article is quick to point out that "We're also hopeful Apple might consider not spending engineering time and lawyer fees on chasing after applications and developers who just want to give folks an obvious feature that's being left out only to appease the RIAA. At the end of the day, Apple needs to know that we're their customers, too."
However I think the BoingBoing article sums it up nicely - " Apple didn't have any choice. If they don't play nice with the suicidally stupid record industry, the industry will stop supplying music for the iPod."
When/If these online music distributors have gained enough market shares (maybe 30% of all music album buyers?), they might able to turn around and force the record industry to make changes, because it's not nice to lose 30% sales overnight.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
On a Mac it's pretty easy to get everything off the iPod - fire up a shell, wander into the directory where the music is stored on the mounted iPod, and simply copy out what you want.
The tool they talk about would make it easier but even a novice can use a shell if they are just following directions.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Seriously. This stuff has been common knowledge since the first generation iPod. There have been numerous softwares to accomplish the same thing and many of them can be found at iPodlounge.com
A simple google search will turn up more than enough results. Was it really nesse3sary to put this on the front page of Slashdot?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
did you not see the "we" with the link to engadget? it's pretty clear that i am with engadget. you might think this info is found in ten seconds with google, but a lot people have no idea which tools are free, which ones work and how to use them. if you can find _one_ article that shows how to do all this for macs, pcs and the hexedit info (again, all in one article that's easy to follow) please let me know. it would have been easier than spending a few hours doing this.
cheers,
pt
There's also CopyPod for Windows which allows you to select individual albums/songs. http://www.copypod.net/index.php
I think one important aspect to Apple's constant user downgrades of the iPod/iTMs is that they stop customers from doing what Apple tells them to do: Back up their songs.
Oddly, Apple's iTMS wants it both ways. They say they are selling you a license for the song, not the physical song. But when you lose a song, they treat it like you lost physical property, even though you paid an apparently perpetual license fee that allows you to have the song and play it.
If something happens to your iTunes library, Apple will not let you re-download those songs again even though the "Fair Play" DRM insures that their could be no piracy involved, since the songs would be locked to the same computers as the original. Tough luck, says Apple, it's your fault for not backing up. Naturally, one would think that the iPod's large disk drive and auto synch would be the perfect way to back up songs, but the schizophrenic Apple won't let you copy your songs off iPod. (Yes, there are ways, but Apple may close that back door at any time.) iPod owners are constantly having to ask on Forums how to recover their accidentally erased iTMS library from their iPod because Apple doesn't officially allow anyway to copy their songs from your iPod to restore their music. Ridiculous.
Their is literally no customer advantage to the Apple downgrades. And copying your legal songs is not illegal. I'm glad that Corry is staying on this.
Just to clarify, it's not actually that hard to get music off an iPod. Sure, iTunes won't let you copy music off it, but on a PC, it's this simple:
Voila! - All your mp3s are there - you can even play then straight off the iPod (in something like WinAMP) if you like.
Admittedly, on a Mac you have to resort to the Terminal (basically all the music files are hidden in Finder), but it's not exactly rocket science!
" To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. "
I don't know when we started being so collectively condescending to the average computer user, but there was a time when you might tell a user to copy a file on their computer and reasonably believe they could do it. These days, most people approach the user like you might approach your retarded cousin who was raised by ferrets on a remote island: don't tell them anything, you might frighten or confuse them (unfrozen-caveman-lawyer style).
Personally, I have faith in people, and when someone asks me how to copy files off their iPod, I show them how to do it with the normal shell commands or file manager interfaces. The belief that people need a WYSIWYG GUI application to move files between storage devices is, I think, a result of the incorrect and insulting attitude that developers are so much smarter than their users.
That's not what the article says, the article REFUTES that point, sheesh.
feh. stuff.
trolling for hits
Then give 'em what they want. Hit the reload buttons, fellow Slashdotters!
What we really need is a how-to instructing geek nation how to get their iPod back after some scumbag stole it!
Interesting, I have the same experience with people who work at Staples.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Or you could not read slashdot at work.
I can give you a real-world example.
My girlfriend (the most honest person I know) has just moved out of her house and off to college. Her iPod, which she has owned for a couple of years, was synced with her mom's Mac. For whatever reason her mom's HD fried.
My girlfriend was SOL. She had downloaded a good amount of music legitimately but now couldn't get any more because if she sync'd with her iTunes and the new music she'd gotten it would wipe her iPod clean.
What did we do? We restored her music to her PC using a tool similar to these.
So that's one legit reason. Some quick ones I can come up with off the top of my head include:
-getting a new computer
-using two computers (i.e. laptop and desktop) and wanting be able to use both for adding music to the library
-computer (hardware or software) is messed up in some way
and, as another poster said, it is YOUR iPod and YOUR music. why can't do with it as you please? What if I got the thing to be both my music player and a good sized portable HD for me to take with me as i travel the world? It's my iPod, after all.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?