iTunes won't let me play songs I purchased

I'm having the same problem. I had an earthlink account ages ago, and made my first purchases with this account. Now I can't play any of the music I purchased with that old account - according to my last iPod update, that's 86 songs, and I really don't want to type in my new authorization info 86 times.

My earthlink account has been dead for years. This issue just showed up. I think it may be related to the iTunes 7.x upgrade.

Can someone please tell us how to tell iTunes to authorize all purchases made with an old account? Requiring us to re-authorize one song at a time is amateur. I expect more from Apple.

to allow itunes to use your new songs or all songs you want to play:

in the store menu:

click "authorize computer"

this should authorize all songs in the library.

Best,
superfreak9184me

have you exceeded your computer limit?

I also cannot play any purchased music on my PC. I sing to my account and it says I have authorized 4 out of 5 the machines. I notice this after formatting and using my iTunes Library backup in Vista. I would hope there is another reason than 'Don't use Vista.'

Nevermind that last post, the problem corrects itself in XP compatibilty mode. Note to Apple: Is there an Vista compatability update in the works?

If you type in your old user name and password 3 times incorrectly, it will automatically ask you if your AOL account is no longer valid, and will then ask you for your credit card information to reauthorize the songs on a new account.