Protecting Your Audio Investment

Like the record album, 8-track tape and the cassette tape before it the CD is slowly giving way to a new form of media. Every year more people are choosing to download their music over the internet as opposed to purchasing more conventional physical recordings. Apple’s iTunes service is by far the most popular distributor of digital audio with over 3 million songs in it’s constantly growing library. Even listeners who don’t own a portable digital audio player find the wide variety of available music, the ability to pick and choose exactly what they want and it’s instant delivery attractive.

While this new media does present many benefits it also presents a new challenge to the customer in protecting their investment. An audio CD can be played repeatedly with little or no wear on the physical media. Unless a listener is overly careless in their treatment of the CD or an unfortunate accident occurs, the disc will remain functional for a lifetime of enjoyment. Digital audio, however, is subject to special licensing requirements that don’t affect more conventional media. In addition, it’s safety is dependent on the state of the computer system on which it is stored.

Even in the hands of a skilled user, a computer system is a far less reliable storage device than optical media such as recordable CDs or DVDs. Viruses, spyware or even simple hardware failure can render a listeners musical collection irretrievable. All to often, we at the Village Geek are confronted with a system brought to us for repair which contains a library of music representing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars. In some cases, we are unable to recover those files without excessive cost to the customer. If you hope to avoid losing your audio investment, an understanding of iTunes licensing requirements and the differences between imported and purchased music can help.

Music may be imported into an existing iTunes library, most often by way of CDs already owned by the listener, and is stored in files with the extension .m4a which designates it as MPEG-4 audio. These files are not subject to special protections and can be reimported assuming the listener still owns the original CD or other media that is their source. This can be very time consuming, especially with larger collections, and proper backup procedures can avoid this inconvenience.

Audio purchased and downloaded via iTunes Music Store is subject to specific licensing requirements and is stored in files with the extension .m4p designating it as protected by FairPlay Digital Rights Management. If lost, these files cannot be redownloaded without purchasing them again nor can they be transferred from a listeners iPod or other portable digital audio player back to the computer system. This is true of unprotected files as well. The flow of data is restricted to transfers from the system to the iPod, as opposed to from iPod to system, to prevent intellectual property theft. It is the sole responsibility of the purchaser to insure they have taken precautions to protect their investment.

iTunes software has imbedded tools with which a listener may record their selections onto writable CDs in either standard audio format for playback in most CD players or MP3 format for use in some CD players or computer systems that do not have the iTunes software installed in them. Neither of these methods is recommended for use in making complete backups of a listeners music library. Writable CDs are limited to 80 minutes of recording time in standard audio format which greatly limits their usefulness as a backup option. MP3s, while averaging as many as 140 tracks per writable CD, are also not suitable for making reliable backups. This is due to the special licensing requirements placed on purchased music or .mp4 files. While unprotected audio may be burned to CD in either format repeatedly, protected audio is limited to a only a scant few recordings before it’s license expires and the files are no longer recordable.

Our recommendation is to backup the entire contents of your audio collection using a third-party burning software such as Nero, Roxio or even the utilities imbedded into Windows XP. All of the files that contain your digital audio are stored by iTunes in a single default folder named iTunes Music with can be found by navigating from you’re My Documents folder to your My Music folder and then to your iTunes folder. This type of backup can be performed repeatedly, regardless of the type of audio involved. In addition, restoring the audio after a computer system crash is as easy as copying the files back into the same folder once the iTunes software is reinstalled. The import function, found under File and Add Folder To Library… under the iTunes taskbar can then be used to restore the catalog entries by selecting the iTunes Music folder as the target to be added.

One last thing you should know regarding protected audio or .mp4 files is that these files require authorization. When a file or group of files is purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Music Store it is automatically authorized one time. Each file is limited to only a few authorizations before it’s license expires and it becomes unusable. If your computer system were to suffer hard drive failure, require a complete reload of it’s operating system and other software or you simply wished to transfer your music to a new system, the files will require reauthorization. The only way to preserve the limited number of authorizations allowed by the licensing agreement is to deauthorize the computer system prior to service or transfer if possible. This function can be found on the iTunes taskbar under Advanced.

Hopefully, this article will keep you and your digital music collection playing along for years to come. Happy listening!