Hi,
was wondering since itunes is lifting DRM of their music files will it be legit now to be able to transcode previously bought itunes music?
If so will there be a transcoder that will do it?
I dont like itunes generally but have several albums i got from thier due to gift cards I got or whatever, but would like to transcode those to mp3 so Winamp will be able to play them.
Thanks

I had a feeling that iTunes would let you re-download tunes you've already purchased (e.g. if you suffered data-loss). Perhaps the re-downloaded tunes (if I'm right) would be DRM-free? I guess you need to refer to the iTunes license/terms and conditions that describes what you're allowed to do. I thought that burning to audio CD and ripping was permissible, which is the same as transcoding.

However, I'm no authority on iTunes' specific rules, so you need to check these yourself.

I think now iTunes offers an 'upgrade' of DRMed purchases to DRM-free music for a small fee. Those DRM-free songs should be playable in any player that supports AAC (incl. Winamp).

If you consider $0.30 per song or 30% of the price of an album to be small, then yes, it's s a small fee.
EDIT: Insert standard "transcoding is bad" rant here

that's interesting. typical itunes trying to jab you with additional fees to get the music you already paid for DRM-free! just IMO. But I assume this will just remove the DRM "shell" and not actually affect or degrade the actual quality of the AAC file?

Actually, when you upgrade your music to "iTunes Plus" you do download a new copy, your old DRMed copy gets replaced with a new DRM-free version that also happens to be encoded at twice the bitrate, 256 vs 128.

So, yes, you do get a little more out of the upgrade than just the removal of the DRM, you get a higher quality copy of the music itself. Whether you'd actually notice the difference or not is of course a different matter altogether.