Ripping music purchased from itunes to mp3

[smartin4]

Can this be done? I am new to itunes, and am still not very fond of the idea of getting music that is not in my beloved mp3 format. I have seen posts & articles about how to do this, but am not clear on the process (or if it can still be done), or what program to use to rip the AC's off of the disk.

I purchased 3 songs, not wanting to waste too much money to find out that I can't do what I want with them. I burned them through itunes (both as audio & data) to my burner Lite-On 851S). When I try to rip them, nothing that I have "sees" the individual songs, all they see is 1 track. I have tried EAC, CDEx, Audiograbber & dBPowerAmp. I even tried to import the songs back into itunes, but I get a message saying something about it being a protected song. Maybe I am missing a step or something?

I am staying away from WMP-based stuff just because they are WMP-based. I just can't get past the idea that you purchase the song (which gives you a license saying that you are allowed to use it) and you can't do whatever you want with it.

Thanks in advance for any answers to my questions.

[aviationwiz]

I always just burn a music CD with iTunes, and then go and rip that CD in iTunes to MP3.

[tazdevl]

Problem is that you're going between lossy formats which = loss of audio quality.

Better to rip everything into a lossless format like APE or OGG, then convert to something else.

[smartin4]

In the Edit menu, I go to preferences and on the Burn tab, i have audio cd selected. I created a playlist and then select burn playlist to disc in the File menu. This burns them to a cd in M4P format. I do get an error message when the burn is done, it says "Access to the specified dvice, path, or file is denied:, not sure if this may be part of my problem or not..

How do you rip them from the cd? If I try to convert them, (using MP3 encoder) into itunes, it tells me that it can't convert a protected file. If I try to import, it just looks at the track and not the individual songs.

[smartin4]

I got it figured out now, though it would be much easier if you could just download and convert it with a right-click of the mouse.

[burninfool]

The problem with d/l music(legal) is they are encrypted and you cannot make an audio CD without first changing formats.
To change formats you need to record analog using Nero Wave Editor,Audacity,CDWave,etc.

[hoxlund]

well theres gotta be some kind of decryption to go straight from itunes downloads to mp3 without burning

i thought i read something like that from cdfreaks news while back

[CowboySlim]

I buy my songs from Wal*Mart, doesn't have that problem.

Slim