Q: Removing DRM protection from purchased AAC music files
Removing DRM protection from purchased AAC music files is necessary in order to make the files available to play with Sonos.
- In iTunes, select My Music
- List songs showing “kind”
- Select a song with “kind” “Protected AAC audio file”
- Click the “…” and select “Delete”
- The song is deleted from My Music and appears in the trash
- Empty the trash
- In iTunes, select iTunes Store
- Under music, select Purchased
- The song deleted at step (4) above appears
- Click the cloud/download icon
- In iTunes, select My Music
- The song downloaded at step (10) above appears
- The song has AGAIN been downloaded as “Protected AAC audio file”. This is a problem, since it is my understanding that AAC Protection is no longer supposed to be used by iTunes.
How do I get an unprotected version of a song I have previously purchased? I have literally hundreds of protected songs that I want to use with Sonos, and I am NOT going to pay for them again.
Thanks,
Chris
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), Also: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Posted on Dec 21, 2015 5:08 AM
If you are using the Purchased screen to download the song again (which is how you described it), try doing the download from your iCloud music library. If you have iTunes Match, your iTunes music library is showing you your iCloud music library. Show your music library using the Songs view (to show a plain list of songs with columns). If you don't see the iCloud Download column, make it visible (it has a "cloud" symbol in its heading). I like to put it next to the song name column. On your library song list, right-click on a song (that has this problem) and select Remove Download (not Delete). Select option to send song's file to the Trash. The song remains on the song list, but it now has a download button (cloud symbol with down-arrow) in the iCloud Download column. Click it to download the song from your iCloud music library (which is different from downloading from Purchased screen). It should be 256 kbps AAC no DRM, for any matched song (including 128 kbps protected).
If it works for one of the songs, sort your song list by the Kind column, so that all of the Protected AAC audio file songs appear together on the list. Select them all at once on the song list, right-click on selection, and Remove Download. Then, right click on selection, and Download.
Posted on Dec 21, 2015 8:31 AM