Purchased Music

Comments

• Reply 1 of 4

  ra Posts: 623member

  October 10, 2005 10:26PM

  One thing I know is that if you accidentally quit iTunes and your download hasn't finished, then you've paid for the music but you won't have it yet. When you reopen iTunes, click on the Advanced menu and select "Check for Purchased Music..." and it will download.
• Reply 2 of 4

  towel Posts: 1,479member

  October 11, 2005 2:32PM

  Quote:
  

  
  Originally posted by JonE
  
  Say I want to format my Mac and start anew, but keep my purchased music obviously, what's the best way of going about this? I have a .Mac account, can I back up my music to the web? Can I just use the iPod to back it up?
  

  
  

  
  
  You should backup your iTunes music files somewhere, then deauthorize your computer before reformatting. After reformatting, restore your backed-up files and re-authorize. You can backup anywhere: an external HD, another Mac, CDs, .Mac, your iPod, whatever.
  
  
  
  The only caveat is for the iPod - in order to make large-scale sharing a little more difficult, the iPod lets you either play your music or backup your music, but not both. If you load music onto it from iTunes, you can play it; but it's difficult to take it off again and put it back onto your computer. If you load music files onto it in the Finder, you can't play them, but you can freely move them off to a computer. So if you use your iPod to backup your music files, drag them all onto the iPod in the Finder, not in iTunes.

  Quote:
  

  
  And most importantly, do I have to deauthorize my computer before every format (and does the .Mac server count as another computer)?
  

  
  

  
  
  Yes, you should deauthorize before you reformat. No, .Mac doesn't count. Only computers that you have specifically authorized to play your music count. You can backup and store your music files on any number of computers, servers, HDs, CDs, 8-tracks or punch cards, and none of them count towards the authorized limit.
  
  
  
  If you forget to deauthorize your computer before the reformat, it's usually no big deal. You get a total of 5 authorizations, which means that if you only have the one Mac, you can reformat it five times - forgetting to deauthorize each time - before running out. Even then, Apple lets you "Deauthorize All" once a year, which gives you a fresh five.
• Reply 3 of 4

  jone Posts: 102member

  October 11, 2005 5:40PM

  Wow thanks for the help, all of my questions have been very elaborately answered. I feel a lot more confident in purchasing.
  
  
  
  Two more though: Is there a way to check and see how many authorizations you have left, and how many CD playlist burns you have left, etc? Also, does backing up to a CD count towards your 7 playlists? I'm assuming not, since they are still just mp3 files and not in CD format.
• Reply 4 of 4

  jegrant Posts: 45member

  October 12, 2005 2:33AM

  I am not aware of a way to check how many burns of a particular playlist including protected tracks are left.
  
  
  
  Backing up music (whether by hand, using a backup application. or even burning a "data" format CD/DVD in iTunes) does not count toward the aforementioned limit of same-playlist burns. Those burns only count when you burn an audio CD that plays in common CD players.
  
  
  
  You can, however, check your total number of currently authorized computers by going to iTunes, clicking "Music Store" on the left hand side, then (assuming you are logged in) click the button on the right hand side with your Apple ID / AOL Screen Name on it, directly adjacent to the text "Account:". Generally, you will be prompted for your password, then taken to a screen that says at the bottom "Computer Authorizations:", after which is a count of currently authorized computers for that particular account.