TuneClone Guide – Convert DRM Protected iTunes Music M4P to MP3

This is the step-by-step user guide for TuneClone http://www.tuneclone.com. Follow this guide, you will be able to convert DRM protected iTunes music M4P to MP3 in a snap. The original music tracks in your iTunes library will be kept intact and the music metadata info will be fully preserved.

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Transfer iTunes songs to non-Apple music player or mobile phone

I have a little Sansa mp3 player, but my mom has an iPod. I have been downloading music from the iTunes store, but I can’t put them on my player. I realize that the songs from iTunes are .mpeg files (or something like that) and that my music player plays .mp3 files, but is there any way that I could work around this, or possibly convert my .mpeg files?

My iPod broke, so I want to buy a new mp3 player, but I was thinking that this time I might try a different brand because iPods are usually a little more on the expensive side. But I still have all my iTunes songs i already bought and was wondering if it was a huge hassle to transfer them to something else and if it might be worth it to spend the extra money on the apple brand..

The songs you purchased from iTunes store are DRM protected. In order to transfer iTunes songs to a non-Apple music player or mobile phone, you will need to get the iTunes music converted first.

If you have a blank CD disc at hand and there are not many songs that need to be converted, you can try this way:

1. Insert the blank CD into your computer disc drive.
2. Create a new playlist in iTunes and add songs to the playlist.
3. Burn the playlist to the CD (choose Audio CD in the Burn Settings window).
4. Rip the burned CD back as MP3 files in iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Then you can transfer the MP3 files to your non-Apple music player or mobile phone.

What if you have lots of songs (say 1000+) that need to be converted? You still use the above burn-and-rip method? You know, a real CD disc can only hold about 79-min music. If the average length of each song is 4 minutes, then the total length would be 4000+ minutes. And you will need more than 50 discs for burning. What a waste of money! What’s more, it is a waste of efforts to insert and eject CD discs again and again. So it is inadvisable to convert a large library of iTunes music using this method.

The software TuneClone also adopts the burn-and-rip method. However, TuneClone cleverly avoids the problem by applying the virtual CD burning technology. The conversion theory of TuneClone is very simple. It installs a virtual CD drive to users’ computers. Then while burning iTunes playlists to an audio CD, you just choose the TuneClone virtual CD drive instead of a real CD disc. So you have saved the cost of real CD discs.

Besides, TuneClone automatically detects whether the length of the playlist exceeds 79 min. If so, it will ask you whether or not to burn multiple audio CDs. After you choose Audio CDs, the burning and encoding process will get started and TuneClone will automatically divide the playlist into several folders. You can actually switch to other jobs before the conversion is completed. So you have saved time as well.

TuneClone works on both Windows and Mac OS. You can refer to the step-by-step guide below:

How to convert iTunes music to MP3 on Windows using TuneClone
How to convert iTunes music to MP3 on Mac using TuneClone

By the way, if you want to transfer iTunes music to an android phone, you can refer to the guide below:

How to sync iTunes music to Android phone
Sync iTunes Music to Android Phone in Mac OS X with WinAmp

How to Convert DRM Protected iTunes M4V to MP4

We have shared with you how to convert DRM protected iTunes M4P to MP3 using TuneClone. But you may have noticed that you could only follow this guide to convert iTunes music. If you also have some movies, TV series, music videos purchased and downloaded from iTunes Store, you may be looking for a way to transfer them to a non-Apple device as well.

So why can’t you directly transfer iTunes videos to a non-Apple device? It is due that Apple uses the M4V files to encode TV episodes, movies, and music videos in the iTunes Store. The copyright of M4V files may be protected by using Apple’s FairPlay DRM copyright protection. To play a protected M4V file, the computer needs to be authorized (using iTunes) with the account that was used to purchase the video. Thus, the iTune M4V files cannot be recognized and played by other video players than Apple devices like iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, etc.

The DRM Media Converter adopts the technology of record play and save the recording to get iTunes video files converted to plain MP4 files. Let’s take a look at the step-by-step guide of converting DRM protected iTunes M4V to MP4 using this converter.

1. Download DRM Media Converter, install and launch it.

Download Link (13.1 MB)

2. Import DRM iTunes M4V files

You can import DRM iTunes M4V files in three ways:

a. Load files by clicking the “Add…” button.

b. Directly drag and drop files to the left main window.

c. Right click on the left main window and click “Add files”.

3. Select output format

By clicking the “Video files to:” box, you can select output format for the source DRM iTunes M4V files. For example, if you want to convert DRM iTunes M4V to MP4, you can choose “Common Video” from drop-down list and choose “MP4 Video” as the output format.

Note: This DRM Media Converter also allows you to customize the video and audio parameters for the output files if the default settings don’t fit your needs. Just click the “Settings…” button to adjust the video and audio parameters.

4. Start to convert DRM iTunes M4V to MP4

Click the “Start” button to begin to convert DRM iTunes M4V to MP4.

Customize your conversion using the three tabs located in the Options menu:

a. From the General tab, specify your preferred destination folder for saving output files.

b. From the DRM Finder tab, customize search parameters for the DRM Finder tool.

c. From the Processing tab, set the program to perform up to five parallel conversions.

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To convert DRM protected iTunes M4V to MP4 on a Mac, please refer to: How to remove DRM from iTunes video on Mac

To convert DRM protected iTunes M4P to MP3 on a Mac, please refer to: How to remove DRM from iTunes music on Mac

To find a better video/audio DRM removal tool, please refer to: Best DRM removal software review

How to strip DRM off iTunes music on Windows and Mac

There are many ways to remove DRM (short for Digital Rights Management) protection from iTunes music. On Windows OS, you can remove iTunes DRM using the burn-and-rip method or you can turn to programs like TuneClone M4P Converter and DoubleTwist. On Mac OS X, iMovie is the perfect solution to removing DRM protection from iTunes music. Besides, freewares like FairGame is also a pretty good choice. So this article is dedicated to introducing several methods of removing the nasty DRM from iTunes music on Windows and Mac OS X. It is divided into the following five parts:

Note: To remove DRM protection from iTunes video, please switch to this guide.

Part 1. Remove DRM from iTune with burn-and-rip method (Win & Mac, iTunes music only)

a. Insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc into your CD-ROM drive.

b. Burn DRM iTunes music to make an Audio CD. You cannot select the MP3 CD option since it requires the DRM protected iTunes music be converted to MP3.

c. After the Audio CD is successfully burned, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive again. Then you can use iTunes to import the music tracks on the burned disc as MP3 files.

Part 2. Remove DRM from iTunes with TuneClone (Win & Mac, iTunes music only)

a. Download TuneClone M4P Converter and install it.

b. Make settings in TuneClone

Click the “Settings” button in TuneClone. In the pop-up dialog, you can specify the “output folder”, “output filenames”, “output format”, etc for the output files.

Note: A Virtual CD Drive will be installed to convert iTunes music files. You must make sure this CD burner is successfully installed. you can check whether it is successfully installed and where it is installed at the bottom left corner of TuneClone interface.

c. Make settings in iTunes

Create a new playlist, and add the iTunes songs you want to convert to the playlist.

Right click the playlist you just created and choose “Burn Playlist to Disc”.

In the pop-up dialog of “Burn Settings”, make the settings as highlighted below:

d. Start to burn

Click the “Burn” button to start burning.

Part 3. Remove DRM from iTunes with iMovie (Mac only, iTunes music only)

In the iMovie window, select the ‘Media’ tab located between ‘Themes’ and ‘Editing’. You will notice that the top right portion of the interface now offers a media browser. Select the ‘Audio’ tab and locate the playlist which contains purchased music, or search by artist/title.

Select the DRM-laden song and drag the file from the media browser into the iMovie timeline where it says “Drag audio here to build your project.”

In order to export the song, iMovie requires that a visual image be associated with the audio track – “iMovie thinks that it is going to be exporting a movie”. Simply drag a blank image (or any other image) to the track above the previously imported audio file. Once iMovie has processed the image, select the ‘Share…’ sub menu item from found inside ‘Share’ in iMovie’s menu bar.

Ensure that ‘Expert Settings’ is selected in the “Compress movie for:” drop-down menu. Selecting ‘Expert Settings’ mode will provide the options to export the file as an audio file. Select the ‘Share’ button.

In the Save as… dialogue, select “Sound to AIFF” in the Export drop-down menu, Choose an appropriate directory for iMovie to export to, title the file, and select ‘Save’. Depending on your machine configuration, iMovie will compress and export the movie project as an audio file in 15-40 seconds.

Locate the exported AIFF audio file and drag to your iTunes Library. Right-click on the file and select “Convert Selection to AAC”. Once completed, ‘Get Info’ on the new file, edit meta data, add album art, and trash the originally purchased and AIFF audio files from your iTunes library.

Part 4. Remove DRM from iTunes with FairGame (Mac only, iTunes music only)

FairGame is freeware to remove DRM protection from iTunes music on Mac OS X. It will convert the DRMed songs you bought on the iTunes Store to an unprotected format (using iTunes default encoder) and keep all the original metadata, lyrics and artwork. FairGame doesn’t do lossless DRM stripping. It re-encodes protected AAC files purchased in iTMS into unprotected AAC file using Apple’s iMovie software.

What you MUST DO (only once) to get FairGame to work:

• enable “Access for assistive devices” in the “Universal Access” system preference
• select “Place clip in Movie Timeline” in the “Import” preference of iMovie HD

Then you can simply:

• select some songs in iTunes
• click on the “Process songs” button

Don’t touch anything and wait until it’s done…(FairGame is scripting iMovie’s interface to process the songs, don’t interfere)

How to import iTunes M4P into Windows Movie Maker

Many people are fond of making slideshows on their Windows Movie Maker, however, it won’t let them import any purchased music song as they are DRM protected. Since iTunes store tops the music retailer in the world, the following tutorial focuses on how to convert purchased iTunes M4P music to MP3, WAV or unprotected WMA so as to import it into Windows Movie Maker project as background music. The tutorial is composed of three parts:

Part 1. Something about Windows Movie Maker
Part 2. How to remove DRM from iTunes M4P music
Part 3. How to add the output DRM-free music to Windows Movie Maker

Part 1. Something about Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is a totally free program that comes with Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional, and Windows Vista. Below are the audio/video formats accepted by Windows Movie Maker:

Video files: .asf, .avi, .wmv
Movie files: MPEG1, .mpeg, .mpg, .mlv, .mp2
Audio files: .wav, .snd, .au, .aif, .aifc, .aiff
Windows media files: .asf, .wm, .wma, .wmv
MP3 format audio: .mp3

Part 2. How to remove DRM from iTunes M4P music

The music songs you purchased from iTunes store are under DRM protection. You cannot directly import them to your Windows Movie Maker project. However you can burn the protected music files to CD-R or CD-RW disc to make an audio CD and then use some CD ripper software to convert the audio CD track back to MP3, WAV, WMA, etc. iTunes allows you to burn the protected music files to CD-R or CD-RW disc to make a standard audio CD:

1. Insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc into your CD-ROM drive. You’d better use CD-RW disc as it can be used for more than once.
2. Burn your playlist to make an audio CD. You cannot select the “MP3 CD” option since it requires the protected music files be converted to unprotected MP3 files.
3. After the audio CD is successfully burned, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive again. Then you can use iTunes to import the music tracks on the burned disc to MP3 files.

The steps are very simple indeed. Yet, I’d like to introduce a little application called TuneClone M4P to MP3 Converter. It applies the virtual CD burning technology so that there is no need to use real disc. I wrote the tutorial about this program a few days ago. You can follow this step by step tutorial to learn how to remove DRM from iTunes M4P music with TuneClone M4P to MP3 Converter.

Part 3. How to add the output DRM-free music to Windows Movie Maker

After you get the output DRM-free music by adopting either the disc burning/ripping method or virtual CD burning method discussed in Part 2, now you can begin to import it into your Windows Movie Maker project.

Click on “File”. Then click on “Import”. A window will appear. In the window, navigate to the sound or music file you want to add to your movie. Then double click on the file. You’ll see the icon for the file in your Windows Movie Maker “Collections”. Click on the icon and drag it on to the timeline to the part of the video you want the sound or music to play.