Moving iTunes purchases from A to B

If I buy a song from iTMS on my work computer, how can I download it again on my home computer? There doesn’t seem to be a way other than paying for it again.

Yes, I can mail it to myself, or burn it, or ftp it. But really, it should show up in my library automatically.

This is an evil plan to make me invest in an iPod. Which I’m not willing to do.

I do not need a portable player. I don’t like shutting myself off from the world while I’m commuting. If I ever do invest it will be in one of iRiver’s machines. Their features suit me better and sue me, but I like the look better too.

28. October 2004 von Caroline
Categories: Products | Tags: , , , , | 7 comments

Comments (7)

  1. ichris says October 28, 2004 at 3:36 pm

    The only way for it to show up in your library at home is if you’re on the same LAN and you ‘share’ it. Even then you can’t actually copy it to your home computer, you can just stream it from one to the other so long as the work computer is on and set up to share.

    But I understand what you’re saying – it would be nice if they had your account records so you could just download it again from up to 5 computers or whatever.

  2. Hg says October 28, 2004 at 10:14 pm

    You might want to find out whether Napster has any plans for a Dutch operation:

    “You can also collect as many tracks as you want on the hard drives of up to 3 PC computers to listen offline and save bandwidth while you surf the Web.”

    That’s not to say that it does everything better than iTunes, merely that it has a different licensing/charging model.

    http://www.napster.co.uk/use_napster.html

  3. Lars says October 28, 2004 at 11:37 pm

    I’d say, give these programs a whirl:

    http://www.nanocrew.net/software/

    I believe that it’s possible to strip the DRM stuff from your (*your*) music.

  4. Herb says October 29, 2004 at 12:19 am

    There are a few methods floating around out there for strpping drm from itunes downloads. Never understood the attraction to buying crippled audio files, but I’ve always been interested in albums rather than singles.

    Ipods are really pricey for what you get. There’s a linux on the ipod app in the works that would enable it to play multiple formats and also use it for moving other files around. When that matures a bit, it might be worth the expense.

  5. elmo says October 29, 2004 at 9:05 am

    surely the U2Pod is the biggest sign that you should get one. g’won, cave! you cannot resist! ditch the iRiver – USB is painfully slow. everyone deserves firewire.

  7. Derek says October 30, 2004 at 1:27 am

    Even better: Go to your iTunes Preferences. Under “Store.” Click the radio button next to “Buy Using a Shopping Cart.” Click OK.

    Now, next to your Music Store is a disclosure triangle. If you click it, you should see a “Purchased Music” playlist. I’m not sure, but this might be synched with your account. Give it a try.