How to Remove DRM Protection from iTunes Purchased and Rented M4V Videos

About DRM Protection

DRM, short for Digital Rights Management, a great anti-piracy system that protects the rights of artists and publishers of music and movies/videos, and Apple used it on iTunes since 2003. However, in 2009, Apple finally decided to drop DRM protection from iTunes library. If you happen to have songs or videos purchased before the DRM removal decision, you still have DRM protected songs and the protected videos/songs must be played on Apple products like iTunes, iPhone, iPad, iPod. Honestly, that is a terrible limitation to a large extent.

How to Remove DRM Protection from iTunes M4V Video?

Just as was said above, if you want to play DRM protected music/videos on non-apple devices, you may need to remove the DRM protection or convert the M4V videos to other more common file formats like MP4, AVI, MOV, etc. or ones your player recognizes. This tutorial tells you 2 methods to remove DRM protection. After DRM removed, you can delete videos in your library or transfer the DRM-free videos to other devices to play.

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Method 1: Burning and Ripping CD (Free)

This method doesn't need any special paid software and all you need is the iTunes and a blank CD or a rewritable CD-RM. Before we begin, check for available update for iTunes. If update is available, download the latest version and install it on your computer. Then go through the following steps.

• Step 1: Configure iTunes to burn and rip a video CD
  
  You should go to "Settings" menu and select the girth disc format to burn a video CD. "Edit" > "Preferences" > "Advanced" (followed by the "Burning" tab).
  
  CD importing settings: "Edit" > "Preferences" > "Importing" > "Ask to Import CD", make sure "Automatically Retrieve CD Track Names from Internet" and "Create Names with Track Numbers" both checked on. Click "OK" to be done.
• Step 2: Create a playlist to burn it to make a video CD ("Edit" >"New Playlist")
  
  >> For more in-depth look at this process, please read how to burn M4V videos to DVD
• Step 3: Ripping the video CD
  
  The last step is to rip the videos that you burned onto video CD, back to video files. Simply insert the burned video CD into your CD drive and click "Yes" to start.

Method 2: Convert M4V Videos to Common Formats (on Mac)

If the first method is somehow complicated or it doesn't work for you, you can consider converting M4V videos to other file formats that can be played on your device/player. To do this, what you need is third-party software M4V Video Converter for Mac. Note that here Mac M4V Converter is introduced and if you are a Windows user, get the M4V Converter for Windows.

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It is easy with 3 steps.

• Step 1: Import DRM protected m4v videos file to the M4V converter Genius Program.
• Step 2: Select your needed file formats as the output format.
• Step 3: specify an output folder and click "Convert" to start the conversion.

After the conversion, you can use the converted files without DRM protection limitation and enjoy them freely.