How to Remove DRM from WMA: Legal & Technical Issues
From a legal standpoint you're not supposed to remove DRM from WMA protected music. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is part of the music industry's effort to curb piracy. And it's not just for WMA tracks. DRM is embedded in more music download files all the time, including MP3, AAC and other formats.
There are legitimate reasons for removing it, but first understand DRM can not be removed from file sharing network downloads. Most songs can only be legally copied 3 to 5 times, which has normally been exceeded long before they appear on a P2P network.
You must have an unrestricted right to copy the song at least a couple of times before attempting to remove DRM. In most cases this means you must purchase the song, although some free downloads provide these rights. Check carefully before you download.
An Ounce of Prevention
There is no easy way to remove DRM since it's securely embedded in the file. The best advice is to only download music in the format you need, including the right to copy it to an mp3 player, CD or other device.
You also need to make sure your MP3 player supports both the format and its DRM protected version. Most players manufactured the last couple of years will, but many won't - especially older models.
DRM Removal and Format Conversion Problems
Let's say you've downloaded some music and it won't work on your player, either because it's the wrong format or the player doesn't support DRM protected files. The most common suggestion is to burn the tracks on a CD, then rip them in the desired format.
There are two problems with this procedure. First, the DRM is still embedded in the song file. Second, converting from one format to another can result in serious degradation of the sound quality.
AAC, MP3, OGG, WMA and other popular music formats (codecs) are called "lossy" because they permanently discard sound frequencies inaudible to the human ear during file compression. Codec algorithms disguise these losses so your ear thinks they are still there. Since each codec's algorithm is slightly different, converting from one to another multiplies the frequency loss making the music sound muffled.
How to Remove DRM
It's not for the technically challenged! Nor is there a one-size-fits-all solution. But that doesn't mean it can't be done - if you really want to tackle it. If you've paid attention up to this point, you might have decided it's not worth it, and I wouldn't blame you.
But if you still want to try, we can provide some basic guidelines.
- The process of removing DRM varies from case to case and is too complicated to detail in this article.
- Determine which codec you need to remove the DRM from, and which format you will convert to.
- You'll need to buy specialized software to identify, isolate and remove the DRM.
- The process requires numerous steps during ripping, isolating, removing and burning/saving.
Do some careful research. There are web pages that will walk you through your particular situation quite nicely. But beware - if it seems too simple, like our example of burning to and ripping from a CD, it probably won't work. Study several processes before you buy the software. You will need at least one program, but make sure it's the right one.
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