Merging iTunes accounts?

You cannot merge the accounts, but you can certainly put all of the music on one computer.

While you can't merge two accounts, what I have found is that you can register two accounts on the same Computer.

All of our devices, two iPhones, two iPads, two Mac Mini's and a MacBook Air are all registered to my iTunes account. This way we automatically share calendars, contact lists, notes etc. It is a great feature to be at the store and see her grocery list, or bump into a friend, update their phone number and in five minutes every device has the update. Big Time saver.

I didn't care about her apps but she did, so her iPhone is sync'd to her computer and both iTunes accounts are authorized on her computer or more correctly, her computer (Mac Mini) is authorized on both iTunes accounts. The only thing I didn't get was one song which I had on CD so I just burned it to our home server.

I would guess you can authorize the same five computers on both accounts and the same iOS devices and effectively you have merged the accounts. It does mean sharing passwords if you care about that.

I don't use iCloud because I used to have a Request server and plan to buy another. I still have the server part of the Request which contains all of my movies and music. The actual controller was sold with the house. I have way more music than iCloud allows for free, and quite frankly, I don't want to have to reload 800+ CDs and 100+ DVD's if iCloud goes the way of me.com or the "free" becomes expensive.

Moving forward we only purchase under one account.

This is much easier than trying to share, sync and trade data. Apple should really look at a family unit like a small business. Everyone should be able to see the others calanders and a master contacts list should be created. Why shouldn't the kids automatically get the update when grandma changes phone numbers?