[504jumper]

I recently bought a 20" iMac G5 and am planning to move my iTunes library from my 5 1/2 year old PBG3. I have a 3G 20GB iPod which has about 1550 songs on it-- the same as the PBG3.
I also picked up a 4GB iPod Mini with the current Apple Education promotion (thanks Apple!) and plan to give it to my girlfriend. She likes most of the music on my iTunes library so I'd like to be able to pick & choose the songs to download onto her Mini. Is this possible? We'll share the iTunes library but both of us will have different music. Can 2 iPods be authorized to 1 computer?
Thanks, your help is always appreciated. :grin
P.S. I think I got my question answered on the thread a few lines down from mine. Guess the GF is out of luck. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

[mdawson]

Well, I first bought an iPod Shuffle back in March to sync with iTunes on my computer in my lab at workI do not have OS X at home yetand I bought a 60GB iPod before I left for a conference in July. Both iPods are authorized on the same machine under the same user account though the iPod holds my entire (ripped) music collection while my Shuffle has been regulated to holding a House music playlist for the gym. If this works fine on a Windoze PC, it should be fine on a Mac.

[504jumper]

That's promising. Over 95% of the music in my iTunes library is mine... or at least ripped from my CD collection; the other 5% is purchased music from the iTunes Music Store. I don't have any downloaded music other than the aforementioned. I read the thread about who owns the music and understand the argument. But it's good to know that I can do this.
So, what do I do when I get the Mini?

[Rugby]

personally I have two iPods connected to my Mac at home and they have no problems sharing the library from my Mac (one 20GB iPod an one 6GB mini)

[504jumper]

so all I have to do it sync the new Mini to iTunes, then select the music I want to download on it?

[moose_n_squirrel]

If you want the iPods to have different playlists, I think the tip I have seen around here is to create a playlist for each iPod and set each iPod to sync to its own playlist. I have seen multiple iPods show up in one iTunes. Each iPod icon is listed under its own name.
I think the real limitation is when somebody wants to sync an iPod to more than one Mac. That concept is more like piracy, but it seems to be getting confused here with wanting to sync more than one iPod to the same Mac, which looks like it's OK for you to do.

[504jumper]

So if hook-up the Mini to my Mac, it will ask if I want to sync it with the iTunes library. I should say "no"? Will it prompt me to create new playlists?
As far as piracy goes, I'm still on the fence. I recognize the fact that artists deserve to get paid for the music they create. There's nothing worse than a scumbag who had nothing to with the album yet can make tons of money from creating & selling pirated music. But on the other hand, there should be a way for people to share their music like people used to do with records & CDs. Back in the day, my friends and I used to say to each other, "I'll make you a tape." We could always make copies of music for each, as many times as we want and no one ever complained. I also know that technology changed the landscape and that it is far easier to make many copies with far greater quality than before, and that the Internet has made it easier for everyone to connect with each other & swap music (and other things). Record companies have been going after the flagrant violators as well as the casual music swapper to show that no one is beyond their scope. But that's not the answer either.
Unfortunately, I'm not smart enough to know what the solution is.

[moose_n_squirrel]

In reply to:

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So if hook-up the Mini to my Mac, it will ask if I want to sync it with the iTunes library. I should say "no"? Will it prompt me to create new playlists?

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Someone else needs to answer that since I've only worked with iPod shuffles. As far as cassette tapes go,

In reply to:

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my friends and I used to say to each other, "I'll make you a tape." We could always make copies of music for each, as many times as we want and no one ever complained

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Oh yes they did. I have some record sleeves that have printed on them, by the record companies, in bold capital letters in the largest type you can fit on there, the message "HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC"
I think those were only on my UK albums though. Americans might not have seen that particular campaign. I made lots of tapes, just like everyone else.

[mdawson]

Well in the US we of course did not have records and CDs with HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC plastered on them, but the RIAA lost the home recording battle, at least as far as cassette tapes are concerned, back in the mid-1960s. While most of us equate these battles with the famous Sony Betamax case of the 1980s and the digital recording revolution of the 1990s, the music industry has been at this since the dawn of recorded music. If the RIAA and MPAA were individual citizens their constant gripes would have ended with the mini cassette (audio) and Betamax (video) cases, but our government has decided that corporations have more rights than the People so every time a new technology comes along we the consumers have to watch this spectacle of how the new technology will destroy their market dog an pony show.
What most people do not realize is that all blank cassettes sold in the US have a royalty fee attached to them to cover casual recording. The royalty fee was what the courts forced the RIAA to settle for when they attempted to bar the sale of blank cassette tapes and recorders. Reel-to-reel systems which were introduced a decade earlier were spared this spectacle due to their expense and complexityreel-to-reel has never been a popular format for the consumer market whereas cassette tapes were inexpensive, easy to use and convenient. The courts decided that the RIAA would have to accept that people had the right to make casual recordings under fair use. The Sony case established that equipment manufacturers are not responsible for errant persons using their products illegally.
The digital age has made high quality copying much easier and the cries of the RIAA and MPAA louder. Based on precedent, every RIAA and MPAA case after the Sony decision should have been thrown out of court on established precedent:

[*]consumers have the right to make copies under fair use,
[*]equipment manufacturers are not responsible for the illegal activities of some users of their products and,
[*]the existing copyright laws lay down the ground rules and cover the bases.
[/list]
The last point is the most important as it means that the RIAA and MPAA are wasting the judiciarys time and taxpayers money by not just exercising their power to persecute bootleggers and pirates under the existing copyright law and leaving the average consumer and equipment manufacturers to go about their business.