Q: I have purchased an album from the iTunes Music Store and would like to play it on my phone (Nokia 6230i). The album is in a protected format… any suggestions?
– Papagolf
A: The iTunes Music Store sells its songs in a Protected AAC format, which – as you’ve noticed – adds restrictions to files which use the otherwise-normal AAC compression format.
While the Nokia 6230i can play AAC-encoded files (many phones can’t!), you’re correct that it’s simply unable to play iTunes’ FairPlay-protected songs.
There are ways to get around this, but we have to warn you that doing any of them could violate the iTunes Music Store Terms of Sale you implicitly agreed to by purchasing music. The least objectionable is to burn your Protected AAC files to an Audio CD and import them into an unprotected MP3 or AAC format.
The resulting files will be playable on your phone, either using the 32MB internal memory or an MMC memory card.