First encounter with DRM

[xortam]

I ran across some old .wma files while I was poking around one of my volumes looking for some files to delete and make some room. I thought I'd give them one last listen before I delete them but clicking on them in Explorer under W2KAS brought up the DRM license update site warning me that I need to re-record the content because of a missing/corrupt license file. I built these files in mid-2000 under Win98 when I tried ripping to HDD and burning audio on CD-RWs (worked fine). I don't mess with CD audio much on the PC so this is the first time I've encountered DRM though I've seen some mention of it here on MURC. My question is ... is it really necessary to re-record your content library if it was built w/o DRM technology? I imagine a user can simply play their non-DRM'ed content on a non-DRM platform and get around this. Will non-DRM platforms play DRM'ed content? If so, wouldn't this technology backfire on MSFT and promote non-DRM platforms?

[xortam]

Wow ... 61 views and not a single reply. I thought this would be an easy one for all you audio enthusiasts.

Is .wma the only content that uses DRM currently? Perhaps most of you aren't using this encoding.

[KeiFront]

Bump

Sorry Xortam I don't use WMA because of DRM (and it's from Mickeysoft) so use mp3 instead

But take a look at this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/22354.html someone has written a utility to un-protect WMA audio files .

Probably you can find the utility somewhere on the web.

Hope it helps.

[xortam]

Thanks KeiFront ... I had already read some of Beal's write-up on DRM. I'm not really looking for a workaround but was posting this more as an academic question. I landed up with some .wma files only as a side-effect of using ECDC to burn some CD music to a CD-RW via buffering it to my HDD. The .wma files weren't a problem until MSFT modified WMP to enforce DRM. I noticed that Real has adopted this technology as well. It seems that DRM would be interesting to content providers who want to/need to protect the property rights of the content while allowing for electronic distribution. All others will probably avoid DRM wherever they can. I'm wondering if DRM currently supports other than .wma files and what the plans are to expand its use. I guess I'll need to do my own research on some of this. I imagine that MSFT will get to the point where their OSes will enforce DRM for a wide variety of content regardless of what application is used on that content.