iTunes - The entertainment capital of your world

You can buy music, movies, TV shows, applications, and audiobooks, or download free podcasts from the iTunes Store 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Organize and play everything on your Mac or PC. Then sync it to your iPod or iPhone and bring it along. Anywhere.

iTunes makes it easy to play and organize music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and more.

1. Import your CD music collection into iTunes
Put an audio CD into your computer’s disc drive and click Import CD. iTunes automatically retrieves each song’s title, artist, and other information (you must be connected to the Internet to get this information).

2. Download music, video, and more
In iTunes, click iTunes Store and you can download songs, albums, audiobooks, TV shows, podcasts, music videos, short films, games, and more. The iTunes Store is always open and your selections download to your computer immediately.

3. Organize your media collection using playlists
Create your own music and video compilations. For example, create a playlist of your favorite songs or of songs perfect for an occasion, such as a birthday party.
Smart Playlists update automatically as your library changes. For example, if you create a Smart Playlist of songs by a particular artist, when you add new music by that artist, the songs are automatically added to the Smart Playlist.

4. Take your media library with you
Sync your iTunes library with your iPod or iPhone to take your collection with you wherever you go. If you have an iPod that supports video, you can watch movies and TV shows on your iPod.

New in iTunes
1. Rent movies from the iTunes Store
Rent and download your favorite movies to your computer or directly to your living room on Apple TV. Enjoy rented movies in sizes up to 720p HD-quality with surround sound on your Apple TV and sizes up to DVD-quality on your computer. Transfer your rentals from iTunes to your iPod or iPhone and enjoy them on the go.

2. Transfer Apple TV purchases to your computer
When you make purchases from the iTunes Store using your Apple TV, when you sync with your library, iTunes ask if you want to transfer your purchases to your computer.

iTunes supported formats:
Most songs are encoded using FairPlay-encrypted 128 kbit/s AAC streams in an mp4 wrapper, using the .m4p extension. AAC achieves better sound quality than the MP3 format when compared at the same bitrate.

While licenses to the AAC compression and the mp4 file format are readily available, Apple generally has not agreed to license its proprietary FairPlay encryption scheme to other mobile device manufacturers, so only devices from Apple are able to play the Fairplay-encrypted songs sold at the iTunes Store. The only exception were three mobile phones sold by Motorola in the years 2005–6: the Motorola ROKR E1, the Motorola RAZR V3i, and the Motorola SLVR L7.

Currently the digital booklets included with some albums are in PDF. With the present iPod software, these files are not readable on iPods.

As of 29 May 2007 tracks on the EMI label have been made available in a DRM-less format called iTunes Plus. These files are unprotected and are encoded in the AAC format at 256 kb/s, twice the bitrate of standard tracks bought through the service.

iTunes and DRM
Apple’s FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) is integrated into iTunes, which manages songs purchased from iTunes Store. iTunes relies on FairPlay to implement three main restrictions:

1. Users can make a maximum of seven CD copies of any particular playlist containing songs purchased from the iTunes Store.
2. Users can access their purchased songs on a maximum of five computers.
3. Songs can only be played on a computer with iTunes or an iPod; other MP3 devices do not support FairPlay encoded tracks.

a part of people do not agree DRM on iTunes
On February 6, 2007, Steve Jobs called on the Big Four record labels to allow their music to be sold DRM-free. On April 2, 2007, Apple and the record label EMI announced that the iTunes Store would begin offering, as an additional purchasing option, tracks from EMI’s catalog encoded as 256 kbit/s AAC without FairPlay or any other DRM.

On May 29, 2007, Apple released version 7.2 of its iTunes software, allowing users to purchase DRM-free music and music videos from participating labels. These new files, available through the iTunes Store, have been called iTunes Plus music by Apple.

In October 2007, iTunes Plus ceased to be a purchasing option. It instead became mandatory for all iTunes Plus licensed content. In addition, the price of iTunes Plus reverted to the DRM price.

Almost immediately after the launch of iTunes Plus, reports surfaced that the DRM-free tracks sold by the iTunes Store contained identifying information about the customer, embedding the purchasing account’s full name and e-mail address as metadata in the file. While this information has always been in iTunes downloads both with and without Fairplay DRM, it is thought that it remains in the tracks as a measure to trace the source of tracks shared illegaly online, which the absence of DRM now facilitates. Privacy groups expressed concerns that this data could be misused if possessions carrying the files were stolen, and potentially wrongly incriminate a user for copyright infringement.

Download program to remove DRM from iTunes music:

SoundTaxi Pro, Protected Music Converter