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Can this software hijack copy-protected iTunes Music Store songs? You bet.
 technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

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Record any audio your OS X Mac can play using Audio Hijack Pro


June 29, 2005


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, The Post-Standard

   Ever wish you could capture the sound track of a DVD? Ever want to grab the audio playing on a Web site? You can do it easily using Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba. It costs $32 and can be downloaded from www.rogueamoeba.com.
   Audio Hijack Pro can do a lot more, too. As its name indicates, Audio Hijack Pro can record the sound of literally anything playing on your Mac. It even has a built-in timer, like a VCR, so you can capture Internet radio shows or any other audio coming into your computer while you are away.
   If you're a fan of Apple's iTunes and do a lot of shopping at the iTunes Music Store, you might be wondering if Audio Hijack Pro can pull off the ultimate stunt. Can it hijack copy-protected iTunes Store songs while you play them and save copies that don't have Apple's digital rights management (DRM) protective code?
   I can see the steam rising from your head all the way from here.
   The answer is yes. Audio Hijack Pro can make copies of your purchased iTunes songs that are free from copy protection.
   But I have three things to say about that before I tell you more about Audio Hijack Pro:
   1. It's illegal to strip the DRM code from music you bought so that you can sell the music. Only pirates and jerks do that. Don't even think about it.
   2. It's OK for you to make copies of your iTunes Music Store songs for your own use. Apple lets you do that anyway. (You can easily burn CDs of that music within iTunes. Apple handles that nicely. Those CDs no longer have DRM code. And no one prevents you from making MP3s from those CDs.) Apple lets you make multiple CD copies of the same store-bought music, so the company clearly understands that you might want to share that music with a few of your friends.
   3. If you plan to convert more than a few of your purchased iTunes music with Audio Hijack Pro, consider buying a companion program from Actionable Intelligence Software called Hijack iTunes, which automates the capture of iTunes playlists. It costs only $10. Get it from http://homepage.mac.com/spkane.
   Back to Audio Hijack Pro. It's easy to use. You simply identify the program (or the sound source, such as the Griffin Radio Shark) that you want to capture audio from and choose the audio format, such an MP3, AAC or Apple Lossless. Then you tell the program where to save the audio files, whether to create a new file after a certain size is reached and whether to record using a timer.
   Then you click "Record" and walk away. The audio will be recorded automatically, while you are doing mail or working on something else, or while the computer is idle. You can even choose effects such as equalization or echo that modify the audio while it's being recorded. Amazingly, you can also record many different audio sources at the same time. (Try doing that under Windows!)
   I use Apple Lossless for most of the Audio Hijack Pro captures. Because there's no audio degradation, Apple Lossless is ideal for captures that I might want to convert to MP3 or AAC later. iTunes does a good job converting audio formats, but I also use Audion 3 Pro; it lets me encode using mp3PRO, which can compress the audio about twice as effectively as MP3 or AAC.