# Iporting songs to iTunes from iPod **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 6, 2003, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304 "2003-12-06T03:06:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ender\_Will](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Ender\_Will](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ender_Will)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/1 "2003-12-06T03:06:13Z")
I’ve got an iPod, and for a variety of reasons (mainly my parents being memory Nazis), after I loaded all my music onto it I deleted it to save space, so I have no copy in iTunes. Now, I have enough room to load the tunes back on, but can’t seem to get iTunes to accept the iPod as the source to load from. Anybody know if I can do this, and what I need to do? ---
**Author:** ![Cleophus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e57/32.png) [@Cleophus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleophus)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/2 "2003-12-06T05:48:30Z")
iTunes won’t let you copy songs from an iPod. You can do it through other means, but the specifics depend on whether you’re using a Mac or a PC. On a Mac, you can either go into the Terminal on OS X and copy the files out of the hidden directories, or use one of a number of utilities that automates the process (search for “iPod” on [Versiontracker](http://www.versiontracker.com) for one). On a PC, you should be able to enable the view hidden files option and copy the files from Windows Explorer. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/3 "2003-12-06T06:03:57Z")
My brother is one of the two Apple engineers who created the original iPod hardware. He says that Apple purposely designed the software not to perform iPod-to-iTunes transfers of MP3 files. Reason: to discourage the illegal sharing of copyrighted music (e.g., taking your iPod full of music and copying it to a friend’s computer). On the other hand, it is neither illegal nor impossible to bypass the iTunes/iPod software’s limitations, by using third-party software available on many shareware websites. When my entire hard drive was wiped out in a mechanical failure, I was able to recover my iTunes library from my iPod. The shareware application I used was iPod Free File Sync. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/4 "2003-12-06T06:11:07Z")
Well, it could be considered illegal under the DMCA. (But honestly, what _couldn’t_?) [“No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”](http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1201.html) ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/5 "2003-12-06T06:41:37Z")
But in that same statute, > [@](#): > > **©(1)** Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, **including fair use** , under this title. ---
**Author:** ![cmason32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@cmason32](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmason32)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/6 "2003-12-06T07:41:41Z")
[For Mac OS X only](http://www.thelittleappfactory.com/software/ipodrip.php) ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/7 "2003-12-06T08:32:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > **But in that same statute, > "©(1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title."** Fair use is a defense to copyright infringement, not to circumvention. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/8 "2003-12-06T08:58:13Z")
My interpretation of subsection ©(1) is that it nullifies the circumvention prohibition in (a)(1)(A) when the circumvention involves fair use. Or to put it in lay terms, “Anything in this law that stands in the way of fair use is null.” The whole purpose of anti-copy measures is to prevent copyright infringement, and fair use is by definition not copyright infringement. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/9 "2003-12-06T14:01:08Z")
I don’t mean to hijack the thread, but according to the [EFF](http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Elcomsoft/boucher_ashcroft_dmca.html) and others, the DMCA doesn’t have a broad exemption for fair use: (emphasis added) > [@](#): > > For example, it creates in Section 1201 (a) a new crime of circumventing a technological protection measure which guards access to a copyrighted work. **Under Section 1201, the purpose of the circumvention is immaterial. It is a crime to circumvent a password or other gateway even for the purpose of exercising fair use rights.** There is no requirement under Section 1201 that the circumvention be for the purpose of infringing a copyright. Any action of circumvention without the consent of the copyright owner is made criminal by this provision. [321 Studios](http://www.321studios.com/lawsuit.htm) is engaged in a lawsuit, trying to get the OK to continue distributing their software. “DVD X Copy” is intended to make personal backup copies (fair use) of DVDs, and incorporates three anti-piracy features. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/10 "2003-12-06T18:55:11Z")
How do you interpret the purpose of including subsection ©(1) in this law, if ©(1) has nothing to do with circumvention? Frankly, I disagree with Congressman Rick Boucher’s interpretation, and I am interested to hear how the courts rule on this. I would also argue that the definition > [@](#): > > **(a)(3)(B)** a technological measure ‘‘effectively controls access to a work’’ if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work applies to anti-piracy measures put in place by owners of the work’s copyright. But this is basically interpretation vs. interpreation. We’ll have to see what the courts say. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/11 "2003-12-07T03:58:48Z")
The way I see it, ©(1) serves the same purpose as the other points under © - to make it clear that Section 1201 defines a new violation, without affecting the traditional copyright violations. If the authors of the DMCA had intended to make an exception for fair use, they would have said so, and many of the DMCA suits that have taken place in the past few years would have been unnecessary. As another example, [Dmitry Sklyarov](http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Elcomsoft/) was arrested because of the software he wrote in Russia, which circumvents Acrobat document encryption in order to allow fair use. You may have a point regarding (a)(3)(B), but it could be argued that Apple is acting on behalf of copyright holders by preventing users from copying music from the iPod. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iporting-songs-to-itunes-from-ipod/217304/12 "2003-12-07T07:12:45Z")
Just to answer the OP: While it’s not trivially easy to get music off an iPod and back to a computer, it can be done. Your music is stored in a set of hidden directories on the iPod; if you connect the iPod to your Mac as a Firewire disk drive, then find those directories, you can just copy the music as any other files. As others have noted, there are third-party freeware to do this for you. Easiest way to find some is to go to [Versiontracker.com](http://Versiontracker.com) and do a search.