Using iTunes Plus.
A while back, Apple announced that it had entered into an agreement with EMI to sell DRM-free music in the iTunes store. It promised that iTunes shoppers would have access to this music in May 2007.
As May wound down to a close, Apple released iTunes 7.2, which adds iTunes Plus features. iTunes plus is a special area of the iTunes music store where you can shop for DRM-free music. It’s also where you can upgrade some of the music you’ve already purchased to the higher-quality DRM-free version.
Here’s how to upgrade the songs you’ve already purchased through the iTunes music store.
Open iTunes.- On the left side of the window under STORE, click iTunes Store.
- In the iTunes Store Home page, click iTunes Plus in the Quick Links box on the right side of the screen.
In the top right corner of the screen that appears, you should see an Upgrade My Library box. (This box only appears if you have iTunes-purchased music that can be upgraded.) Click See Details.
A dialog like the one shown here appears. It asks if you want to enable iTunes Plus preferences so only the DRM-free versions of music appear (when available). Click iTunes Plus.- A new version of the iTunes Store Terms & Conditions appears. Read this legalize if you like. When you’re ready to continue, click Accept.
An Upgrade My Library screen appears. It lists the albums, songs, and videos that you have purchased for which DRM-free versions are available. Click the Buy button to upgrade all music and videos for the price shown onscreen.- If prompted, enter your login information for the iTunes Store and confirm that you really do want to complete the purchase.
Anther dialog tells you that the new songs will replace the old ones and gives you an opportunity to save the old ones to a folder on your desktop. Click Move to Desktop or Delete Files as desired.
The download begins. You can monitor its progress in the Downloads screen. iTunes displays the iTunes Plus window again so you can do some more shopping.
It’s quick, it’s easy, and its reasonably priced. Let’s hope Apple makes more agreements with music publishers to sell DRM-free music. It’ll certainly get me shopping in the iTunes Store again.
One more thing — you may want to repeat this process periodically. As Apple signs up other music publishers, more songs will be available for upgrade. You can follow this process to upgrade more iTunes-purchased music in the future.
I look forward to converting the rest of my purchased library — all 500+ songs — to the DRM-free version.
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Hmm, did all the steps (plus making sure iTunes Plus was enabled in my account, but it doesn’t see any of the DRM tracks I have.
Had a little theory, so I purchased one DRM song. Tried again, Plus now sees that song, but not the ones in my library,… that’s the culprit.
Externally located iTunes library
I have a Power G5, and due to lack of space, I have the library on another drive inside the computer. Recent purchased songs (until moved,) are located in my boot HD’s iTunes folder,…
Well, will wait until somebody posts a hack, or Apple updates iTunes Plus to see DRM files on external drives.
But thanks for the post, Maria, it did help ^-^
Bob Guthrie
iTunes Plus will only “see” EMI-published songs that you purchased from the iTunes store. That’s currently the only music publisher that has an agreement with Apple.
Could be that none of your music is EMI. Remember, EMI is the smallest of the big three music publishers.
I was very surprised whenm of the 500+ songs I’ve purchased from the iTunes store over the years, iTunes Plus only found 27 to update.
I just upgraded my 30 or so songs to DRM-Free, and one of the cool things is, iTunes retains your ratings and other track-specific info to the new files. Very cool. I had some custom sorting items on my tracks, and these were all retained. Very, very cool.
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Great tip! I was only able to upgrade a handful of the tunes in my library, but I’m going to pay particular attention to EMI’s offerings when I’m shopping iTunes in the future, and I’ll hope other distributors follow suit.
I was real excited, but found none of my purchases can be upgraded.
I suppose I need to check every few weeks.