Will Apple let me re-download my songs without DRM?


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I've read on the net that Apple will let you re-download all of your purchased music "once" in the event they get lost, stolen, or because of a failed hard drive. I have around 200 songs that I've purchased from Apple but all of them were purchased before Apple went DRM free. So my question is, since Apple has gone DRM free, when they let you re-download your purchased songs will it be DRM or DRM free?

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I think you might have to find that out for yourself. I know that they didn't let me download some other stuff because they were "discontinued" or some BS excuse like that. I think they didn't let me re-download my video purchases (I'm thinking because they wanted to save bandwidth?). Then again you can email them and ask too (unless someone here already knows but what's better than getting confirmation from apple themselves?!) they respond pretty quickly and have AWESOME costumer support (in my experience). I downloaded everything I needed (even gave me a second and last chance for being a long-run Apple Store buyer!) and got an other email asking me if everything went well, which surprised me :p.

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As far as i Know the answer is NO, they still have the DRM library and they know if you have or haven't paid for the upgrade, they will charge you the $0.30 upgrade.

One annoying thing I encountered, I had some problems with some files and the support Tech for some reason re-Qued my Entire Library, which is nearly 600GB of stuff I have bought from iTunes, they couldn't undo it either so i was left to re-download everything, I had previously upgraded my entirely library to iTunes Plus yet i had to download both versions.

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which is nearly 600GB of stuff I have bought from iTunes

600 GB? That seems a bit excessive. At a keynote address a year ago they pointed out that the largest itunes bill to date was something in the $35,000 range.

Assuming 100 movies at 1-gigabyte each and 35,000 songs at 15 megabytes each (roughly double the average).

That'd work out to roughly $35,000 -- are you that guy, was it a typo, or are there really people spending that many people spending 5-figures a year on music/video?

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As far as i Know the answer is NO, they still have the DRM library and they know if you have or haven't paid for the upgrade, they will charge you the $0.30 upgrade.

One annoying thing I encountered, I had some problems with some files and the support Tech for some reason re-Qued my Entire Library, which is nearly 600GB of stuff I have bought from iTunes, they couldn't undo it either so i was left to re-download everything, I had previously upgraded my entirely library to iTunes Plus yet i had to download both versions.

Way to go dude! Thanks for making us freebie lovers feel better for not buying music and movies. It's people like you who make us feel a little better when we listen to music and movies for free.

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Way to go dude! Thanks for making us freebie lovers feel better for not buying music and movies. It's people like you who make us feel a little better when we listen to music and movies for free.

I don't understand why people who pirate music and videos get that warm feeling of self importance when bragging about their pirating escapades. Yes, it's great not having to pay for the media, but you're not paying because you're breaking the law. I know that no-one would feel guilty for short changing people like the RIAA and the MPAA as they're greedy pigs.. but it is breaking the law all the same.

You can't blame people for wanting to do it right and pay up - but then it is frustrating that they get screwed over with DRM, etc!

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Woah! Assumptions here are off the scale! Such accusations are uncalled for. If you read what I wrote carefully again, I clearly talk about listening to music and watching movies for free. Are you saying I can't use my ears to listen to music and eyes to watch movies wherever I find them? Haah! Get off your high righteous horses!

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Woah! Assumptions here are off the scale! Such accusations are uncalled for. If you read what I wrote carefully again, I clearly talk about listening to music and watching movies for free. Are you saying I can't use my ears to listen to music and eyes to watch movies wherever I find them? Haah! Get off your high righteous horses!

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You can change your drm music to the new iTunes plus format which does not have DRM. There should be anption in the iTunes library about upgrading your library. Clicking on this brings up the details of your music and how much it will cost. The cost is roughly 30% of the original cost I think(could be wrong though).

When you upgrade, you pay the one off cost and you redownload your content in the higher quality/non drm format.

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And I said I re-downloaded nearly 600gb, i think it was like 587gb or so, and this purchase history was over a 6 year period

That's quite a bit.

A better way to flaunt your collection would be with a smart playlist: My music library is quiet large for music (only dozen movies so far) but about 80% was not bought through itunes (ripping from albums, magnatune, amazon, etc. make up the majority of my music). By comparison I only have a middling 2,000-and-change worth of iTunes purchased video/books/audio files.

The only album I can remember pirating was Massive Attack's 100th Window. I bought the plastic circle but found out that it contained some sort of busted DRM that would cause it to get stuck in slot-load drives on macs. I returned it as defective for a refund, pirated the thing from a friend who was on a PC, and mailed 10-quid to their Bristol address. Oh, and the last Danger Mouse album -- but that's sort of a special case and I did by his blank CD + photo book.

I live in a country where the it is legal to make copies either from disks or through downloads. I almost never make use of that right because any music I want to listen to is going to be good enough that I want to pay for it. In the off chance there's something I don't want to pay for but still want to own: it's worth the convenience to just use itunes rather than try to deal with whatever the 'new napster' is.

I tend to spend my music budget in concerts when I can. I'm not so much about "they make more money from touring" as I am "concerts are bloody fun"! I'm fortunate in the fact that many of the bands I like are relatively small so they'll play at smaller venues where tickets are dirt cheap. ie: tonight -- Shout Out Out Out Out for $15. That's less than cover charge at a respectable club. Propagandhi in a few weeks for about the same. Gogol Bordelo happens sometime soon too.

Edited by evn.
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Woah! Assumptions here are off the scale! Such accusations are uncalled for. If you read what I wrote carefully again, I clearly talk about listening to music and watching movies for free. Are you saying I can't use my ears to listen to music and eyes to watch movies wherever I find them? Haah! Get off your high righteous horses!

How do you do it then?

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Just an update. I emailed Apple customer support and they kindly replied to me within 12 hours saying that I could re-download all of my purchased items (DRM free) as long as they still had it in their library. But again, they said this was only a one time exception. I'm very happy that I'm able to re-download most of my purchased songs, (around 50 have been removed from their store), without having to pay 0.30 to upgrade to DRM free. Apple support rocks!

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They are going to give you the itunes Plus upgrade FREE? Thats sad, i could have just waited till everything in my library was available in iTunes plus then asked for the one time re-download and saved myself around $380 in upgrade fees :(

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..So wait a minute.

You can only redownload the music you've bought once in iTunes?

Yes thats correct, that is why they tell you backup your purchases on CD/DVD so you always have a copy, granted with my library its better to just do a HDD backup.

This is not like PSN or Xbox Live, you can't just re-download purchased items as many times as you want

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i didn't know that you could only download them once. Its better to just buy the actual cd then.

You can Download then twice, once after purchase and then one more time if say your hard drive dies

However if your a smooth talker im sure you can get it more than that, a re-download does usually Require talking to iTunes Store support on the phone

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