Sharing Your iTunes Music with Others

Setting up an iTunes computer to share its music is a two-step process. The first step is to connect your computer to a network or to use the Fast User Switching feature on a Macintosh computer. The second step is to configure iTunes to share your music.

You can also use iTunes to see who is accessing the music you have shared.

note

As of iTunes version 4.9, on which this chapter was based, you can't share iTunes music among the user accounts on a Windows XP computer. To listen to another user account's music, you have to import that music into the iTunes Library under each user account. For more information on this, refer to http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93195. Hopefully, this will be corrected soon and Windows users can enjoy the same sharing among user accounts on the same machine that Mac users do.

Connecting an iTunes Computer to a Network

As I wrote in an earlier note, this is not a book on networking, so I can't provide the information you need to connect computers together on a network. However, to enable sharing over a network, you must be connected to a network, which makes sense because the computers have to have some way to communicate with one another.

The network over which you share iTunes music can be wired, wireless, or both, and it can include Windows and Macintosh computers. If you have such a network and your iTunes computers are connected to it, you are ready to share your music. Otherwise, you will need to build the network before you can share your iTunes tunes.

Sharing Your Music with Other People Who Use Your Mac

If you use a Mac, each user account can share its music with the other user accounts on the same computer (and on the network to which that Mac is connected). Share Libraries on the same Mac act just like Libraries stored on different computers that you access via a network. Using the Fast User Switching feature, you can leave iTunes running under one user account and someone else can log in under another use account and use iTunes to listen to music you share. Likewise, if another user shares her iTunes music and leaves iTunes running when you log in to your user account, you can access her music, too.

For help configuring user accounts on a Mac, see my book Special Edition Using Mac OS X, v10.4 Tiger.

Setting Up Your Computer to Share Music

To allow other people to listen to the music in your Library, perform the following steps:

1.	Open the iTunes Preferences dialog box and then open the Sharing pane (see Figure 21.1). Figure 21.1. Using the Sharing pane of the iTunes Preferences dialog box, you can allow other people on your network to listen to your iTunes music.
2.	To enable music sharing on your computer, check the Share my music check box. When you do so, you will see a prompt reminding you that sharing is for personal use only; click OK to clear the prompt. When you share music, you have two options for the music you share. You can share your entire Library or you can share only selected playlists.
3.	To share your entire Library, click the Share entire library radio button. To share only specific playlists, click the Share selected playlists radio button and then check the check box next to each playlist you want to share. You can scroll through the list of available playlists using the scrollbar located on the right side of the list of available playlists.
4.	Enter the name of your shared music collection in the Shared name field. By default, this will be the name of your user account on the computer with 's Music added to it. However, you can enter any name you'd like. This name will be how others identify your music on their Source Lists. tip If you make changes to the sharing configuration in iTunes while other people are accessing your Library, such as changing your sharing name or requiring a password, those users might have to restart their iTunes to be able to access your music again.
5.	If you want to require that people enter a password before they can listen to the music you share, check the Require password check box and enter the password they will have to use in the box.
6.	Click OK. The music you selected to share will become available to others on your network.
7.	If you require a password to let others access your music, provide them with the password you created.

Knowing How Many People Are Using Your Music

You can monitor how many people are using the music you are sharing by opening the Sharing pane of the iTunes Preferences dialog box (see Figure 21.2). At the bottom of the pane, you will see the current status of sharing (On or Off) and how many users are currently connected to your music.

Figure 21.2. At the moment, the Status information at the bottom of the pane shows that one user is sharing the iTunes music on this computer.

The Status section shows only those users who are actually accessing your music by selecting it on their Source Lists. If they don't have your music selected, they won't be shown as being connected, even if they can see your music on their Source Lists.