MP3 Protection

[Guest bluesmudge]

I have recently signed up for napster, I pay £9.95 a month and am able to stream, as many tracks as i want, OR i can download them (which is included in the 9.95) and these downloaded tracks can be transferred between up to 3 different computers which is cool......

SO i was thinking, wow my smartphone that kind of counts as a computer? i mean it runs windows and i would be using windows media player - a little naive i know but you can see where i was coming from.

SO why doesn't it work? There should be a reward for buying superior phones, like the ability to transfer and run restricted MP3's. Anyone know anything about this?

Bluesmudge

[Guest PinkPig]

At the moment there's (I believe) no device that will play "subscription" style tracks from Napster or similar. This includes all MP3 players / mobile phones. The main reason for this is technical requirements - there are particular hardware and software requirements to running the subscription material. In particular, the phone would need to have a secure clock (ie. you shouldn't be able to make the phone think that you have time left on your subscription that you don't have.

Also, the whole point of the Napster service is that you do have to buy tracks individually (or by album) if you want to play them on CD, or any mobile device. I imagine that artists / record companies would be much less willing to have their tracks available if it were possible to listen to them anywhere.

The other type of protected files (still WMP DRM) - are those without the time limit, which can be burned to CD or played on an MP3 player. AFAIK, smartphones can't even play these - but, I believe, WMP10 (on some US versions of the C500, possibly available in the UK in the future) will allow these sorts of files to play (but still not subscription files - i think). Of course, you can always play individually purchased Napster tracks on your smartphone by burning them to CD and ripping to MP3 (or non-protected WMA). It would be good if the Napster subcription could be used on your smartphone though....

[Guest Confucious]

Isn't Copy protection wonderful? ^_^

You can't even play music you have paid for on a device that you have paid for. No wonder people resort to piracy - not that I endorce piracy in any way, shape or form but theyy sure as heck don't make it easy to remain on the right side of the law....

[Guest MorphFx]

In theory you could record your protected audio files by running up something like 'cool edit' or other audio recording software and record it as it plays. You would need to use the 'volume control' app in 'AccessoriesEntertainment' menu supplied by the OS. Goto Options...properties and select the recording option in the 'Adjust Volume' section. Untick everything in volume controls accept for 'Stereo Mix'. and click ok. Most sound cards these days support this facility.

Now when you record in the app it will record any sound being played by any application at that time, snip the silence at the beginning and end of the wave form and save.

Save file as wav (later versions of cool edit support mp3), then do as you please with it...

Of course this is theory and in practice the resultant file is probably deemed as 'piracy'. I neither condem or condone some forms of piracy :wink: but then again who am I 8)

[Guest AlanJC]

There is a totally legal way to do this as they allow you to burn to CD, you can burn to a CD image file (so you don't waste the CD's) and rip it back to MP3. The loss of quality is minimal because you're leaving volumes etc the same.

Google for "remove drm from wma" and hit I'm Feeling Lucky.

The link does state it's illegal to remove DMA from a protected file, but explains that you're not doing that, you're doing what I said up top.

[Guest Confucious]

As I said before:

Isn't Copy protection wonderful? icon_wink.gif

[Guest iainp999]

if someone were unscupulous and not overly concerned with quality, it is possible they could download some wav editing/recording software (e.g. audacity), configure it to record "what you hear", play the track and record to wav

then encode the wav to mp3

not that i condone that sort of behaviour

[Guest kurtfhouse]

Maybe I have misunderstood something here but the tracks I have bought off the net which have protection play fine on my phone.

All you have to do is use Windows Media Player (preferably 10) and choose the tracks you want synced to your phone (the phone being connected obviously) and hit the sync button and it copies the tracks over with the required licence and hey presto they play fine :lol:

My gripe with doing things the legal way is even if you have bought a permenant licence for a track, they will only let you download the licence 3-5 times which sounds o.k but due to computer 'difficulties' I have almost used this up on a couple of songs. That seems unfair as I have bought the licence and should be able to download it until the cows come home if I need it, why should I have to but it again? :evil:

If I have already bought the permenant licence for a track and the online folks won't let me re download it, is it illegal to download the song via WinMX or Kazzar as technically I have paid for that song?????? :?

[Guest MorphFx]

I don't think it counts at present but I can see the whole license software/music thing heading in the way most other things of value have gone.

For instance money, if buy something for £5 with a legal £10 note and you are given some mickey mouse £5 note in change, doesn't give you the right to use that fake money legally.

Owning a cloned psx ii game even though you paid for an original could still be looked at as stolen property.

I think the argument for backing-up licensed products in-case of loss or damage will soon be eradicted by the use of new technology that will use some form of personalised id and key encryption on all digital devices to allow only the rightful registered owner to play,execute,read and write a digital product.

If you lose the media, then you should be able to obtain a copy for free or at the cost of the physical media (downloads i guess would be free). The content would be useless to anyone else unless you lend them (or they steal) your device too.

Hey, I'm gonna in touch with the big players on this one, i'm sure MGM, Sony and other fat companies would be interested in this idea... :lol:

[Guest Confucious]

The problem is that you can only play music on certain devices. So even if you have bought and paid for it you still can't play it on your SmartPhone.

I don't know about you but I think that sucks.