Can You Burn CDs With Apple Music?

It may not happen very often, but occasionally, you may want to burn a CD to take with you. 

It may be to play in a car without a Bluetooth connection, on a party bus, or from a DVD player. 

With the money you’ve spent on music through Apple iTunes or Apple Music, an important question is whether you can burn that music to a CD?

Can You Burn CDs With Apple Music

If you have purchased the music from iTunes, then yes, you’ll be able to burn them to a CD but if you’re streaming music through Apple Music or even if you download the music through Apple Music, you won’t be able to put those songs on a CD.

Keep reading to learn the details of when you’ll be able to burn a CD and when you won’t. 

I’ll also walk through how to use the Apple programs to make that disc so that you can be sure it’ll play on your device.

Can I Burn a CD From My iTunes Library?

Whether you can burn a CD from your iTunes or Music app library depends on the permissions you have for the song or album. 

Not all music has the same permissions, so it’s important to understand the difference between what you’re paying for, and what license that gives you for making copies.

Can I Burn Music From My Apple Music Subscription?

The Apple Music subscription is a streaming service that also allows you to download a copy to your local device to play offline. 

However, that subscription service does not give you legal permission to make physical or digital copies for use on other devices.

The unauthorized duplication of media is what’s known as digital piracy, and is actually a crime. 

Yes, even if you don’t intend to sell it, it’s still considered a crime just to make the copy.

If you’ve added music to your iTunes or Music app library from your Apple Music subscription, you’re not going to have the option of making a CD. 

While you’re paying for your subscription, you’re paying for access to play the music. 

However, if you make a physical copy of the music, you’ll have access to it whether you keep your subscription or not, which circumvents royalties being paid to the artist who created the music.

Apple uses DRM protection on all of its music available through the Apple Music subscription.

While there are numerous articles about how to get around this protection, it still dances the line of legal copyright infringement. 

The penalty for each song burned to a CD without the right license is anywhere from $200 to $150,000. 

A CD with 12 songs could end up costing you as much as $1.8 million in fines, plus court and attorney fees.

Can I Burn Music I’ve Purchased?

Any music you’ve purchased through the iTunes store, or on a physical medium, allows you to make copies for personal use. 

iTunes and the Music app allow you to compile a CD and burn copies.

If you own physical copies of any music, you can put the CD into a computer running iTunes, and convert the music into digital files you can then burn.

How Many Songs Can I Burn to a CD?

The number of songs you can burn to a CD depends on the size of the song and the format you’re burning to the CD. 

For instance, a standard music CD will hold about 640 MB of music. 

This translates into about 74 minutes of audio in a standard .WAV or .AIF format. 

The average song is about three or four minutes, so you’ll be able to fit between 20 and 24 songs on the disc.

However, if your CD player can play MP3 format songs, each song requires significantly less space.

You’ll be able to fit up to about 100 songs on the same 650 MB CD by burning it in this form.

If you’re unsure if your CD player can handle MP3 format, stick with the standard audio disc file types.

How Do I Burn a CD From My iTunes Playlist?

Burning a disc in both iTunes and the Music app is straightforward if you just understand the process. 

Before doing anything else, make sure you know what songs you have purchased versus what’s part of your Apple Music subscription.

Next, make a playlist with the songs you want to burn to a CD. 

On this list, you can put the songs in the same order you want them to play from your disc. 

This is especially helpful if you’re burning a disc for use at an event or on an outing where it’s acting as the soundtrack that will help tell a story.

Once you have your playlist assembled, you’ll need to insert a blank disc into the optical drive. 

If you’re using a computer without an optical drive, you’ll want one that plugs into one of the computer’s USB ports.

Now select the playlist you want to burn, and either right-click and select Burn Playlist to Disc, or click on the File menu, then Burn Playlist to Disc. 

You’ll have a few options, including the file format, recording speed, gap between songs, Sound Check, and whether to include each song’s information.

Once you’re done selecting the options, just click Burn, and it’ll start working. 

Once it’s done, it should eject the disc and alert you that it’s done. 

If the playlist requires more than one CD, then you’ll need to insert another disc, and it’ll automatically keep working through the process until all discs are burned.

What Kind of Disc Should You Use?

Several types of discs are available, depending on your need.

If you’re going to play your disc in a CD player, your best bet is using CD-R discs.

With these discs, you can only burn to them once, and then it’s permanent.

With CD-RW discs, you can use them multiple times to write new files. However, many CD players won’t recognize them, so it’s only useful if you’re using the disc in a computer.