How To: Strip DRM Without Wasting CDs
Wednesday, January 7, 2009 at 03:46PM 
Woo! iTunes is now DRM free! Thanks to a new tiered pricing system on the iTunes music store, songs you download from iTunes are now playable anywhere! Sounds great! And going forward, it is! But what about all those songs you bought on iTunes over the past few years? Those are still locked to your iTunes account. Unfortunately, Apple is still asking $.30 a pop to upgrade each of your songs to the DRM-free iTunes Plus model which is now the standard. That can add up fast. For My buddy Kenn Bell of The Dog Files, Apple is asking $271.56 to upgrade his library! Some thank you for being honest and NOT utilizing Mininova and The Pirate Bay, huh?
When you rip a CD into iTunes, it's DRM free. Just a free music file in whatever format you choose. (For iTunes 8.0: iTunes > Prefs > Import Settings) But who wants to waste CD after CD just to wait and wait and wait and then wait to rip it, then just throw it out!? That sounds crappy to me.
So, what to do? I have a free, albeit tedious, solution:
Got Toast? If you don't, it's a great app to have. It's not free, but the new Toast was just announced at CES, and it's reasonably priced. At $79.99 after a mail-in rebate, it's a great utility for the consumer. So, how does it help you strip DRM, you ask!? Well, I'll tell you. You see, all you have to do is throw the music directly from iTunes into Toast, make sure it's set to an Audio CD, and then just save the image! Once it's saved, mount it as an image through Toast, and iTunes will see it, grab it, get album info from Gracenote, and offer to import it! Voila! DRM free!
Granted, it will take some time if you have a lot of purchased music, but it'll save you $.30 a song!
Any questions or anything I didn't cover? Leave it in the comments, or shoot me an email.
Reader Comments (3)
Great Post and Video! Now I have an option. Thanks, Mark!
Nice post and video. Thanks.
Nice and very useful tips. Another alternative to save more CD. Thank you.
EnjoyMusic