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Application lets Mac users save audio from Flash files

An application called iExtractMP3 may open some doors for people want to save …

DRM and content protection schemes don't always last very long these days, as enterprising individuals tend to find ways pretty quickly to get past the protection and get to the juicy nugget of content in the center. The latest content nuggets up for grabs are the wealth of music videos available on YouTube. MakeUseOf has the details of an application called iExtractMP3, which allows users to pull the audio from Flash files like those found on many sites.

YouTube already includes functionality that lets you buy the music found in certain videos, but some people just aren't willing to shell out the cash. YouTube and most other sites also have their content in FLV (Flash Video) format, and as you might expect, these files contain both video and audio information. FLV files can also be downloaded without a lot of effort, after which iExtractMP3 takes over. The software splits the audio and video tracks in FLV files, and saves the audio track separately. The application doesn't actually transcode the audio, meaning that there's no change of quality. This can be both good and bad, given the audio quality of some YouTube files.

I have no idea where extracting music from YouTube videos or other sources falls on the legal continuum, and we can't necessarily condone using the software. YouTube and various content providers will probably get pissy if a lot of people start doing this, though, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the ability to do this disappear in the future. As for the software itself, iExtractMP3 is a free Universal Binary that runs on both Tiger and Leopard.

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Channel Ars Technica