iHallMonitor

    I discovered an oddity about iTunes. I have a lot of old mp3s. Most likely the statute of limitations has run out, but I don't think I'm going to discuss in writing where I got them. Suffice it to say that they are old mp3s of unknown origin as far as iTunes is concerned. Just as something to try, I copied and pasted a few hundred of them into iTunes and was surprised when this worked. Sort of worked. Later, when I added songs from a few new cds I'd bought to iTunes and my iPod, I found that the old mp3s hadn't made the trip to the iPod. When I tried again, I found that each file had a tiny i-in-a-circle next to it. When you scrolled over it, a popup box said that the file could not be used because the associated file could not be located.
    To shorten a very long story, all I had to do was copy the original mp3s from their cds to my hard drive. Then I had to locate one file for iTunes at the new location and iTunes was happy to find the rest. In other words, iTunes doesn't care if the files are bought, stolen, or made up; it just wants them to be on the hard drive twice, once at a separate location and once on iTunes. You don't have this problem if you rip tunes off of cds. It just seems like an exercise in making you waste disc space. My first guess was that iTunes is a narc, preventing you from using unpaid for tunes. But it seems more like a particularly officious hall monitor. I just don't see the point.