Removing napster copyright (.wma files)

So my friend downloaded stuff from napster, he's trying to convert it to wav, and in almost every program it shows that it's protected and you must install napster to play it. Does anyone know anything on how I can remove this and encode to wav / mp3?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Tell him to download non-protected stuff from popular P2P networks instead. Circumventing the DRM protection is illegal just as well, so he obviously doesn't have any moral issues with pirating anyway.

Apart from that, the only way to actually remove DRM-protected files is to manually re-record them on the computer with an appropriate software and a soundcard supporting simultaneous playback and recording. Needless to say, it's simply too much of a fuss.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Wrong, there are tools that can strip off the encryption from a WMA file if the user has the license data on his machine. This only works for the current version of WMA (version 2) but not for the old one. Needless to say: the stripping process if lossless, so you won't get reencoding artifacts.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The point is, it's much more convenient to just pirate mp3 (or other non-protected) versions of the music, especially since moral issues aren't of any concern here.

Also, could you link to that tool?

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Originally Posted by Rock

The point is, it's much more convenient to just pirate mp3 (or other non-protected) versions of the music, especially since moral issues aren't of any concern here.

But that was not the question here. The question was if it was possible to remove the copy protection from WMA files. And the answer is yes if some conditions are given.
And don't talk about morals here. As I already said you can only decode the file if you own the license for the file. Without the license the file is not readable and you would need brute-force decryption to get your data (and with the current keylength this could take years). So DRM stripping is only available to you if you already legally own the file. And if I own the file and want to play it on say my standalone in my opinion I have the right to strip off DRM to get the file playing in my standalone.

Originally Posted by Rock

Also, could you link to that tool?

No, sry - I won't give any links here, but you can quickly find a lot of material on google. Probably you will only find sourcecode that you've to compile yourself, a huge obstacle for the normal user. There is also another problem that is depending on security bugfixes provided by ms that render the application non-operational - so you've to use a virtual machine to get this working.

Does this sound complicated? Yes and indeed, it is. But I didn't say it was easy, only that is was technically possible.

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@ LiquidAcid

I was gonna say, if you know of a *good* way to circumvent WMA DRM, you should be all over Doom9...

But seriously, Rock is right. Don't try to break WMA DRM. It is a long, hard and ugly road. Just re-download via Limewire of torrents. It's not hard to get ahold of anything these days.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by LiquidAcid

No, sry - I won't give any links here...

lol, why not?

How ya doing, buddy?

I have my reasons galen and the german law concerning the circumvention of copy protections is one of them. I'm a bit paranoid about this topic and I'm not going to change that (partly because of some events involving a fellow student and the police...)

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Originally Posted by LiquidAcid

I have my reasons galen and the german law concerning the circumvention of copy protections is one of them. I'm a bit paranoid about this topic and I'm not going to change that (partly because of some events involving a fellow student and the police...)

Seriously, if you're that paranoid, you shouldn't hang out at Gamingforce.

How ya doing, buddy?

We're already quite off-topic, so why not end this discussion here. I think I can decide myself in which boards I hang out and how much information I provide there. I'm only cautious.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by LiquidAcid

We're already quite off-topic, so why not end this discussion here. I think I can decide myself in which boards I hang out and how much information I provide there. I'm only cautious.

Yea, because giving out links to tools is illegal in Germany

How ya doing, buddy?

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/28/1518205

That might help. Google for "FairUse4WM" and see if it suits your needs.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

It's possible to convert Napster DRM-audio to unprotected formats by SoundTaxi. However it converts only purchased songs and your subscription should be active

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Grawl

Yea, because giving out links to tools is illegal in Germany

So's talking about 9/11 in Canada. 'Sup international guys~

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?