Every single day more people get educated
by Volker Weber
From BlackBerryForums.com :
I have a Blackberry 8800 with a 128mb media card, and I want to play music that I have paid for via itunes.
Sorry. You can only play music you have not paid for via iTunes.
Repeat after me: DRM is bad for the customer.
Comments
Volker, has the old trick (burn to cd and rip to mp3) which you mentioned here stopped working?
Even if it still works, it's a cumbersome workaround.
My Music, my disgression.
I.e. I decide how, where and with what tools I'd like to listen to it.
Best regards,
Martin
you can use Tunebite, which provides easy and legal "conversion" of protected mp4 to free mp3.
www.tunebite.de
DRM is the only Reason why I do NOT own this iPod thing....
Viktor, DRM is not necessarily connected to the iPod device. You can perfectly handle a library of MP3's only with it. You don't even need iTunes software to synchronize it with your desktop, there are third party tools available to do that as well.
@Ragnar: Could you post links to these tools or maybe even recommend one - preferably one that runs on Vista?
OK, maybe I sometimes ask for a lot or am dreaming :-)
I have played with both ephPod and MusicMatch (both in older versions though). They both seemed to work fine, but for me they provided little to no additional value over iTunes, except for escaping from the Apple lock-in. Since I needed iTunes for updating the firmware anyway, I used that. Using past tense, since for a while the already once replaced hard disk in my iPod is failing on me and even vowe's magic tricks couldn't help fixing it.
HTH,
Ragnar
P.S.: Concerning Vista compatibility, I can't say anything, since I have not yet had any direct contact with Vista.
gtkpod on cygwin on Vista
I'd recommend googling for QTFairUse
Ralf, I think your links are more helpful if you would want to develop your own application to feed the iPod. From what I meant and what I read from Hennings question was that we're talking about ready-to-use alternatives for iTunes.
Frank, QTFairUse seems to be a step earlier in the process for the people pointed to. I am not too sure about the legal situation of purposefully breaking a DRM protection. And from what I understand from Wikipedia's explanation of how it works you still need iTunes to play the file (which probably helps for the legal part).
Sorry, didn't get it? If it's just about syncing a local mp3 library with the iPod, gtkpod is a "ready-to-use alternative"...
A perfect translation for anyone confused by the industry spin...
Hm, ok, updating firmware might be a reason to use itunes.
Otherwise I'd be satisfied with a little peace of software that syncs mp3 from my HD ("ripped" from CDs I already own), runs on vista and doesn't force me to install quicktime as well. gtkpod on cygwin on vista seems to be a strange workaround ... maybe I decide to manage the ipod from Linux ...
Ralf, sorry, I confused the libgpod with gtkpod. Of course, you're right, it is a ready-to-install solution as long as you hace gtk2 available on your system. AFAIK, that should be the case for current linux distributions.
Here is a special on Lifehacker about iPod sans iTunes.
