Tom's Views

There are ways to   copy songs   from one or more   iPods   into your   iTunes library, even if you do not have the original copies of the music in your iTunes library.  WARNING: You’d be breaking copyright laws by duplicating music that you do not own; particularly if you distribute said music to others by syncing it to their iPods.  Advice: If you didn’t pay for it or create it yourself, then do not copy it.  Even if you paid for it, still, do not distribute the music.

But if you still wish to proceed, then one way to copy the music goes as follows and involves two basic steps:

1. First, copy the music from each iPod to your computer and import it into your iTunes library.
2.  Then, copy or sync the desired music from your computer to whatever iPod(s) you wish.

Step 1 is tricky, because for one, you won’t be able to play any DRM (digital rights management) protected music from the iPod it originally came from on the destination iPod.  For those songs, you’d have to get the original owner to burn them onto a standard CD and give it to you to import into your iTunes library.  Or, you could pay extra money to iTunes to remove the DRM.  Then you could copy them as described below.  But, if we’re only talking about a few total songs, copying them to CD and then importing that CD into your iTuens library is probably the easiest.  I’ve done this many times.

Now with that said, and you decide that there are too many recordings to copy by burning to CD, you can follow the steps below.  I’ve tested this procedure myself and it seems to work well:

1. We’ll call one iPod the source iPod, because it’s the one that has the music you want to copy.  We’ll call your iPod the destination iPod, since this is where the music you desire will ultimately end up.
2. First, make sure that the source iPod is set to manually manage music and videos.  Do this by plugging this iPod into the computer that originally initialized this iPod (the computer from which the music on the source iPod came) and checking the “Manually manage music and videos” check box.
3. Check the “Enable disk management” box in the same screen.
4. Eject and disconnect the source iPod.
5. Take the source iPod to your computer and plug it into that computer.
6.  Then, on your computer, find the source iPod’s drive in Windows Explorer.
7. Copy the folder called ‘iPod_Control’ to your local hard drive.
8. Once that copy operation finishes, select the ‘iPod_Control’ folder in Windows Explorer and pull up its Properties window.
9. Eject and disconnect the source iPod, as you’ll have no further need of it.
10. In the Attributes section of the resulting Properties window, uncheck the Hidden checkbox and click the Apply button.
11. Bring up iTunes on your computer if it’s not running already.
12. Now you’ll have to decide if you want to copy the files from the iPod_Control directory you just created into your iTunes library or not.  Set this option as you desire by going to EditàPreferences.  In the Advanced tab, the checkbox for this is called “Copy Files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library”.  If you don’t copy them, then you must retain the iPod_Control folder you just created.  If you do check this box, then iTunes copies all music files into its internal library.  Done this way, you can delete the itunes_control folder after the importation completes.
13. To start that importation, in iTunes, go to the FileàAdd Folder To Library… menu item.
14.  In the resulting Browse For Folder dialog box, locate the iPod_Control folder you just copied to your hard drive in step 7 above and select it.
15.  Then press OK.  iTunes then begins importing the files in the iPod_Control directory into your iTunes library.
16. Note that this will not copy the play lists on the iPod; only the music files.  You’ll have to organize the music into play lists in iTunes later if you so desire.
17. Once the importation is done, plug in the destination iPod to your computer that now holds the desired music, and copy or sync whatever you want from your iTunes library to it.  Since your iTunes library now contains the music you want to copy, you’ll be able to copy or sync It from there to the destination iPod.

WARNING: You’d be breaking copyright laws by duplicating music that neither you nor your brother-in-law own.  Advice: If you didn’t pay for it or create it yourselves, then don’t copy it.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Giving Away Copied Music Is Stealing!

References

• http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/ontherun/how-to-copy-music-from-your-ipod-to-your-itunes-library-5615
• http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/250743