Can I share my husband's I Tunes account?

I have a new iphone and an itues account. My husband has his own itunes account which he has imported all our CDs to can I copy them accross?

A couple of thoughts on sharing the iTunes account:

1. When dealing with CDs your husband has ripped (i.e. copied to his computer), you don't need to use the same iTunes account.
   
2. But, if you do share the same iTunes account on the two machines, you reap two benefits:
   
   1. it means that you can share any music you purchased that has any DRM (digital rights management, security that prevents unauthorized people from playing your music, though Apple has moved away from DRM any old purchases may have limitations); and
      
   2. Also, if the two computers share the same iTunes account, it means that you can take advantage of a great iTunes feature called "Home Sharing", which makes it much easier to drag and drop music from one computer to the next as well as to keep the two machines up to date (e.g., right in iTunes you can check the other machine for any music not on your machine, and if you find any, you can drag it right over into your machine).

Please tell me I don't have to import them separately to my laptop then my phone?

You don't have to rip the CDs again, but you will presumably want to copy them over to your computer. If you have no music on your computer at all, you can use Windows Explorer to copy the entire iTunes folder (inside your Music folder) over, or if you already have some music on your machine and you want to integrate the two iTunes libraries into one, maybe check out Home Sharing.

Message was edited by: Rob Ryan

On Home Sharing:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3819

Cindy, Yes you can share your husband's account, or you can get you get your own account if you prefer, but that has nothing to do with your question.

The important thing is to get the content copied across to your laptop, using one of the methods described by Rob. Use that content to build your iTunes library, and then sync your iPhone.

So, if I enable home sharing on my Itunes, and then log on to my account on his computer I will have access to all our CDs?

Yes, if he shares his iTunes library on his machine, then you can play his music from your machine. If you share your library in iTunes, he'll be able to play your music from his machine. If you both, furthermore, turn on "Home Sharing" feature, then you can both not only play music from the other person's machine, but also drag and drop to copy music to your respective machines.

And he can then use my account- he says he has only downloads podcasts and stuff so he won't \[lose] anything by using my account.

Yes, so for "home sharing" to work, you both log into the same iTunes account, turn on "Home Sharing" and when you're both running iTunes on the same network, you'll see each other's computer right in iTunes. If he doesn't care which account you use, you can then choose the one that works best for the both of you. (If you've bought some stuff, maybe use yours, if neither of you have bought anything yet, then it probably doesn't matter.)

And lastly, the music will be stored on the laptop not on my phone?

Whatever you want. If you're really tight on disk space on your machine, and his machine is always connected to the network, you can just play it from his machine (assuming he's running iTunes as well). If you want to play music even when his machine is not connected (or if you want your machine to effectively operate as a back up the music library), then you'll want to copy it to your laptop. If you want the music on your iPhone (so you can play it wherever you are), you will not only copy the music to your laptop, but also then sync your iPhone with the laptop so that music will be copied onto your iPhone. So, in answer to your question, I assume you'll store a copy on your laptop, and only on your phone if you really want to have it there.