Most of the protected video and music downloaded online like Windows Media Player iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, Bearshare , Spiral Frog are all DRM files.

What is DRM? Why do we remove DRM from windows WMA, M4P and WMV?

DRM (Digital Rights Management) - The anti consumer copy protection that prevents you from using music or movies in a way that suits you.
For example, if a DRM WMA or DRM WMV you downloaded from WMP(windows media player) that has windows DRM, you can only play it back on a compatible device, so if every piece of music had windows DRM on it you would need to buy the same track on CD to listen in your CD player or car, as an iTunes download to play on your iPod, as a ms store download to play on your Zune etc, but since you paid for it once you shouldn't be forced to pay for it again and again and again, remove windows DRM and you can play it on your phone, iPod, Zune, PSP, CD player, pc, and anything else that you can listen to music on.

I got a few methods listed below:
1. Burn and rip
Actually, there is a common free method to remove DRM WMA, M4P with 2 steps:
Step 1 Burn the DRM WMA, M4P to a CD.
Step 2 Rip the DRM WMA, M4P from CD to your computer as MP3 format , then the DRM should be removed from the WMA files.
But it's not very convenient that may wear out your CR-ROM, and It also needs a blank CD, a CD burner and a CD ripper to help you.


2. Re-record
One of the most common and simple technology is recording the DRM WMA and DRM WMV then use an ordinary converter to convert the recorded and unprotected files. Because this technology is easy to realized and easy to support more DRM formats besides DRM WMA and DRM WMV it is welcomed by most of the DRM converters like the SoundTaxi,Tunebite, etc.
But there are some disadvantages for those programs.
1. The conversion speed won't get much improvement due to the long recording process.
2. Much audio and video quality could be lost during the recording process.


3. Hook
Hook is another new and more complicated technology which can be used to remove Windows DRM. Comparing with Re-recording software, these sorts of programs have much higher conversion speed, but it's hard to make it support some DRM formats with new and lofty encryption techniques.
And as far as I know, Daniusoft was one of its supporters. After giving a test for some free trials I found it's very easy to remove DRM from WMV WMA files with Daniusoft Digital Music Converter, and it also can extract audio from DRM WMV and othe video files and supports other audio formats conversion like M4P, AAC, AC3, WAV, M4A, M4b, MP3, etc.

You can free download the Digital Music converter to have a try:




Simple steps for conversion:
1. Add DRM WMV , DRM WMA, iTunes M4P and other protected files.
2. Choose the output format you need
3. Pressthe "Start" button.

As a vista user, I have been using TuneClone for quite a long time. It converts all kinds of DRMed music to MP3, WAV, unprotected WMA with high quality at very fast speed. And the virtual CD burning is awesome.

I use Tunebite for converting the drm'ed files I need.

Nice post, thanks

I heard that Napster is going to open a DRM-free music store, is that true?

Melodycan allows to convert WMA files (Windows Media Audio) from Napster To Go, Rhapsody and Yahoo Music store; convert M4P to MP3 (MPEG4-AAC Audio) taken from iTunes store; convert RAX files (Real Audio) from Rhapsody; convert ATRAC (Sony's proprietary compressed music formats) purchased from Sony CONNECT Music Store; convert AA audio books from Audible store and a couple of other formats.

As the music in iTunes is encrypted with DRM, you cannot directly put it on any non-Apple MP3 player. The easiest way is to burn the music to an audio CD and then rip it back to Windows Media Player or a similar program as an MP3. Or you can get some software to help you. I use TuneClone to do this. Though not free, it is very well worth a try.

Below is its step by step tutorial about how to get iTunes music converted to MP3:
How to convert iTunes 8 M4P(protected AAC) to MP3?

MelodyCan Protected Audio/Video Converter is a software tool you can use for

conversion of wide range of different audio/video file formats to most commonly used formats like MP3, WMA, WAV. This software is

especially useful in case if you have protected music/video files you want to listen on playback device, which doesn't support particular

DRM technology, like MP3 CD player, iPod/iPhone, Zune or other portable digital player, cell phone, Pocket PC, etc.

Tips:

* The music content must be legally obtained and can be played on the computer where MelodyCan is installed.
* Works on x64 Vista/XP!



MelodyCan DRM Converter popular tasks are:


* Converting protected files to unprotected format
* Convert DRM protected WMA files
* Convert iTunes to MP3 format
* Convert itunes protected movie
* Convert DRM protected songs
* Convert Rhapsody files to MP3
* Convert protected video
* Unprotect WMA files
* Convert iTunes Videos to MPEG
* Convert protected RAX to MP3
* Remove DRM from WMV files
* Remove DRM protection
* Remove DRM legally

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