Songs I ripped from purchased CD's 20-30 years ago no longer play in Apple Music

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Songs I ripped from purchased CD's 20-30 years ago no longer play in Apple Music

Every time I try to play certain songs that were ripped from CD's that I purchased MANY years ago, I'm asked to authorize this computer to use them. This is horribly frustrating. It seems that Apple somehow "protected" them. I sense they were protected when my wife (who is no longer on this earth) played them at one point. There is no way I can authorize this computer to play those files using her ID because her Apple account was deleted.

Is there a way I can unprotect them? I read about these suggestions which I tried. They didn't work:

Rename the .m4p files to .m4a (the offending files are named .m4p)
Right click on the offending file in Finder and select Open With->Music

I sold all the original CD's many years ago.

Posted on Jul 3, 2023 11:15 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

277,729 points

Jul 4, 2023 06:20 AM in response to craigfrommiddleton

From the sound of things the .mp4 files are protected files. iTunes Store purchases made back in 2009 or earlier might have been in the old 128K protected format, or you may have used Apple Music to transfer content to a new computer back when a separate subscription to iTunes Match was required if Apple Music wasn't to replace matched tracks with 256K DRM laden versions if you downloaded to another computer. Technically you were supposed to discard any rips you made when you sold the original CDs. Short of buying the tracks again, or using a subscription to Apple Music to let you choose from a larger catalogue, there isn't anything you can do.

tt2

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Songs I ripped from purchased CD's 20-30 years ago no longer play in Apple Music

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