I have a MP3 Player that can only play MP3 files, (MPIO DMK) and signed up for the napster music service, the converting software I have been trying doesnt work because of the copy protection in the WMA file, is there anyway to remove the protection?

Thanks!
Jay G

bump

i tried several converters including mp3 wave without success.... im attempting to convert wma's i made off some of my cd's and the only option i have left is to burn the songs again and make sure the copyright protection is not on... it's a bummer... i've tried numerous converters to no avail.... but if you find a way ... let the world know

All I have to say is that while it is immoral to "steal" music, I have no problem with "stealing" music that is grossly overpriced...Wait, isn't that all music??

I have Musicmatch Plus. Any music that can be played in Windows Media Player, I can record. If I can hear it I can rip it. I start both Musicmatch and WMP. I set the recording source on "system mixer" for the musicmatch. I then hit record, and rip it as it's playing on the WMP. Piece of Cake. If you download one off of Kazaa that is protected and won't let you even play it, that's a different story. You just have to search a little longer and find a mp3 file for the same song. One problem I have encountered is that some WMA tracks record to mp3 this way with a dc offset on the signal wave, and when aligning them to zero you get distortion. In that case I record it either as wma on a CdRW and rerecord it to mp3 with CDROM as source.
If it really get's friggin difficult I just play it through my stereo on line out, and route it back in through line in and record it as an audio track, then convert it to an mp3. SIGH! If I could afford music I would buy it rather than steal it. Nothing like finding "Against The Grain" by Bad Religion, listed in the country and western category, then spending 25 minutes downloading it off a slow connection, only to find out it is really Frank Sinatra doing "My Way", or worse yet 1001 Violins doing Billy Idols greatest hits in a rub-a-dub style <G>

Edit: download the wave form editor Audacity 1.2 and lame 3.93.1 (lame is the mp3 conversion plug in). They are Very Very good, and free.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

If you're able to burn it onto a cd then you should have no problem ripping it from the cd as an mp3 file.

For example, I downloaded the My Immortal(Band Version) drm protected wma file from evanescence.com.
I knew I couldn't convert it to mp3 since it's drm protected, but I also knew I could burn it onto a cd(especially since the website says you can!). So I burned it onto a cdrw by using MusicMatch. I opened up Winamp and used the plug in, CD Ripper(http://www.winamp.com - check the plug ins or http://www.poikosoft.com for full program). Ripped the file from the cd to mp3 format. And here I am listening to My Immortal....in mp3 format!!

Hey,

I was looking for the same thing but this thread helped me out big time so I became a member just to post this:

First, I use Ahead Nero 5.5X for burning CDs. I read that you can burn the DRMed WMAs to a CD so what I did was use Nero to make an image of a music CD so I didn't have to waste an actual CD. It's possible that whatever CD buring program you use will offer the same possibility - making an image and not burning right away. Anyway, then I got two free programs off the internet.

Daemon Tools
(http://www.daemon-tools.cc/portal/portal.php)
"DAEMON Tools is a virtual cd/dvd-rom emulator. It is able to emulate nearly all known copy protections on the market today."

CDex
(http://cdexos.sourceforge.net)
"CDex is a tool to do all sorts of things audio related. Mainly focused on ripping and converting, things like turning your home Compact Disc collection into an mp3 collection on your hard drive become extremely easy. With built in support for many encoders you wont find any shortage of options for your media files. Below is a more in-depth explination of CDex features.

CDex Feature List:

* Easy to use interface
* Media File Player
* Create PLS and M3U playlist files
* Advanced jitter correction
* Support for many file formats/audio encoders (WAV, MP3, OGG, VQF, APE, etc)
* Support for ID3 V1 and V2 tags
* Support for normalization of audio files
* Support for transcoding of compressed audio files
* Support for CDDB
* Support for recording from the analog input line

Best of all CDexis entirely free! You will never have to pay to use the software or register in any way. Moreover, CDex is entirely opensource, as per the GPL Terms."

Now, after making the CD image and NOT burning it to a CD, open up Daemon tools and "mount" the image. Now you should see a 'virtual cd/dvd' drive on your computer with your music CD in it. What is going on is Daemon is acting like you have a DVD/CD ROM and you have a burned CD of your music in it. Now open up CDex and use the drop down box to select the 'fake' CD drive. It will open up in CDex as an actual CD. Now select all the tracks you want and then click "convert to..." and pick either MP3s or WAVs. After it's done, close CDex, unmount the image, close Daemon tools, and delete the image. In your specified folder you'll find the tracks as converted audio files.

Enjoy,

Lunatic

Yeah but waht about:
0xC00D274B: You cannot play this file on this computer
Windows Media Player cannot play the file because it is secured with a digital license. The license that unlocks the file and allows you to play it resides on the computer where the CD track was copied.

If you are attempting to play the file on the computer where the CD track was originally copied, the license is either missing or corrupted. Recopy the track from the original CD, and then try to play the file again.

Error ID = 0xC00D274B, Condition ID = 0x00000000

I have a whole slew that this fellar burt... and now all WMA are DRM Protected...

What I find particularly amusing about this whole RIAA thing is a lot of these "hip hop" artists are into this dub thing. Where they take a little piece of another song and sample it (sorry if I'm using the wrong terms) into the mix. So you are hearing their song, and parts of another song. It seems these artists from an earlier time are not getting any royalties from the same companies that are crying about how the current artists are losing money from p2p, but feel no compulsion to not screw other artists at the same time.

http://go.to/unf**k were the astricks are (uc) Go there.. install unfook... Take off the readme only in the infook.ini

This will unfook it....... then convert the wma to mp3


If link is dead..lemme tho.. i can send

- How the f**k UNf**k works

You first have to register the file before unprotecting it.
So, if you get an "error playing file"- error :

1) first register the file by trying to play the file
2) a browser window will popup, choose yes, open from location
...music starts .. stop music ..
3) THAN load it into unf**k.exe !!!!

Lots of people complained it didn't work .. this is why :

Unf**k.exe uses a work-around; the file must actually be registered first. But it always registers the first time you listen to it.

Unf**k.exe takes an already registered WMA file and
outputs it as a WAV, than re-encodes it into an unprotected WMA file.

Do this within the timelimit and you have an unprotected WMA file


-- SAMPLERATE & BITRATE

The UNf**k.ini file is made by unf**k.exe after first use. it's in the same dir as the unf**k.exe file.

It looks like this

[WMA Writing Output Driver]
config_waveoutdir=C:\WINDOWS\Desktop
config_bitrate=64
config_samplerate=44100
config_nch=2

Note that the wma file will be unprotected and saved to your desktop
C:\WINDOWS\Desktop. Edit this location if you want to change the save location.
Leaving an non-existing folder here like C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\u will result in 2 error messages (error playing writer, error creating file).


Here you can change yr sample and bitrate.
When editing unf**k.ini do not forget to close unf**k.exe and write-protect the ini file.
(-rightclick ini file, properties, mark: read-only)


-- DLL needed on xp/2k machines

Unf**k.exe needs this dll on xp/2k machines so it will see the codec - it's WMAUDSDK.DLL which normally resides in the windows\system directory of '98/ME machines. I think the dll file should be copied to a similar location on xp/2k machines...

-- Codecs

You might need to download some codecs to make unf**k.exe work.
Links change so i'll give you the following search string for google
(download codecs +wma) :
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=download+codecs+%2Bwma

-- Copyright

Please do not unprotect copyrighted material; it's illegal

-- Location
You found this program on http://go.to/unf**k

-- Programmer
I am not the programmer. I do not know who (s)he is. My thanks go out to the programmer, maybe someday he'll contact me at :

I used Nero 5.5.x to make a CD image of a protected wma file that I bought on BuyMusic.com, but it does not work on protected files.

I tried Unfu**.exe on a protected wma file I bought from BuyMusic.com, and it did not work.

I also tried Media Twins, and it did not work.

At last, I tried Total Recorder 4.4 SE unregistered version. It does not convert DRM protected wma files either, but it can record the file into wav format as it plays from WMP 9. A registration key is needed to record more than 30 seconds of audio.

I used Roxio Easy CD Creator 6 to make an audio CD from a protected wma file that I bought from BuyMusic.com. You can use a CD-RW so as not to waste a CD, or use a CD-R with track-at-once (don't finalize CD) to add to CD project.

itīs extremely easy.just download v7 and v8 codecs. then open the wma with winamp so as to connect to internet and download DRM.

JUST DELETE THE unf**k.ini TO AVOID "Error creating Writer" or similar

use freeme to DRM1 and unf**k to DRM2

Regards from Spain

Jay. So did you figure a way and what did you end up using?

hello
i have the DRM problem aswell

i tried the freeme.exe method. and it gives me this :
C:\torent\2 Fast 2 Furious Soundtrack>freeme 01Start.wma
This file is version 1 protected, not version 2.

Press <ENTER> to acknowledge error.


C:\torent\2 Fast 2 Furious Soundtrack>

so freeme.exe only does version 2 files. and i have version 1 files..

what now ?

i just donīt know why the hell you just donīt read *ALL* the posts before. youīre using DRM v1 so try unf**k

Will freeme or unf**k work with Windows Media 9?

yes man. unf**k is for windows media 8 and freeme for wm9. just give a try

If freeme works with WM9, someone please post a URL so users can download freeme. Thanks.

just making a google search you can find hundreds of webpages where you can download it

If you can hear the music on your computer, therefore you must own it. If you own the music, you can easily and legally re-encode the DRM protected WMA files to MP3, unprotected WMA or any other format you want.

To remove the DRM, check out this site:

http://uk.geocities.com/thetomcatslair/Entertainment/DRM/drm.html

It's legal, fast and free - you even use Windows Media Player to do it for you!