Windows Media protected files not playing.

[balzi]

Hi all

Yesterday all my music was playing fine and today's alot of it isn't.
I have been ripping my CDs into my work PC for almost 6 years now and when I started I always ripped to protected WMA. But the first time I upgraded my computer and had to re-download the license files for them all, I decided to go with MP3 to avoid that happening again. I would simply re-rip them if I could be bothered with 50+ CDs.

anyway, I noticed this morning that my music wasn't working so I restarted Media Player. still no good. then I noticed it was giving a generic error message and marking the files with a red cross.
after some trial and error I found that only the WMA files had stopped playing.

I last ripped a CD about a week ago and it was to MP3 anyway.
Has anyone got any clues as to why my protected music files would stop working out of the blue??

I did read somewhere that Microsoft will not be allowing users to download new licenses for protected files, BUT 1) I am not downloading a new license as I have been running with the current one for years, and 2) I thought the deadline for that was next month.

thanks for any tips.
balzi


edit: important information -- I just looked up properties on one of the WMA files and under Media Usage Rights it says in the panel "This file is missing media usage rights" Hello? excuse me? I can only assume that this was working yesterday when my files played fine. Bizarre! Is there an expiration on media usage rights licenses?

[just brew it!]

... Is there an expiration on media usage rights licenses?

Sounds like you've already answered that question. I suppose the other possibility would be a bug in the DRM software... or maybe one of the "tilt" switches in the DRM software decided (correctly or not) that you were doing something illegal.

This sort of stuff is the reason that DRM is evil. Giving someone else arbitrary control over content you've already paid for, putting yourself at the mercy of bugs in the DRM software, and relying on license servers you have no control over (and might not be there a couple of years down the road) is ridiculous.

Just out of curiosity, why in the world would you intentionally apply DRM to tracks you ripped yourself, from your own CDs?

[balzi]

Just out of curiosity, why in the world would you intentionally apply DRM to tracks you ripped yourself, from your own CDs?

I have asked myself that quite a few times. From having to reburn CDs I wanted to listen to in the car, to being limited to what i played on my ME2 (ipod copy) when it worked, to this computer upgrade thing.
I'm a anti-piracy nut - I can't believe that well meaning people turn a blind eye to piracy and have no issue at all with buying DVDs from Thailand and burning each others music (which has morphed to sharing iPhone/iTouch/iPod music libraries)... so back in the day, I probably thought it would prevent anyone from nabbing my music library without it being redendered un-usable. I have no other explanation.. the short version is lack-of-forethought-manifesting-as-stupidity

I think the WMA's were actually smaller aswell.. is that even true? and I could have chosen unprotected WMA anyway.. what I doofus? anyway, enough me bashing - is there a way out of my hole?

edit: what is most frustrating is that CDs which I can't find anymore, I am stuck with the WMAs which are proving more and more useless. Be warned everyone.. it truly sucks when this happens.

[bobboobles]

I do believe the .wma files were smaller. I remember using them on my 128mb iRiver

[just brew it!]

OK, I can sort of see the thought process that led you there... but assuming you weren't making your hard drive accessible over the Internet, I'd say it was huge overkill. As you've figured out, you were really just inconveniencing yourself...

And yes, WMAs had better compression than MP3 (or equivalently, better fidelity at the same bitrate) -- WMA was a newer, more advanced compression format. Later MP3 encoders like LAME pretty much caught up to WMA though. OGG Vorbis also does a very good job (similar performance to WMA); that's what I use, since most Windows/Linux based players support it, and my Sansa Clip can play it too.

Edit: Even putting DRM issues aside, what you've described is also an argument for avoiding proprietary formats. Strictly speaking, even MP3 is proprietary (the algorithms are owned and patented by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft). So if you really want to be sure that your music will be unencumbered by DRM or patent restrictions on future media players, you ought to be using an open format like OGG Vorbis...

[balzi]

As you've figured out, you were really just inconveniencing yourself...

well obviously some of us weren't finished with the stupidity highlighting.. thanks for rubbing it in...
can we more constructive now... oh please oh please. Even someone saying "you should go and buy all your CDs again" would be more helpful.. well, actually it wouldn't, but something a bit more helpful than that would be helpful, you with me!!! I didn't think so.

I feel like the clown who can't pull off his tricks and people laugh harder than ever but it doesn't make him feel as good as the other way!! enough rambling - apparently I've got Friday-itis where work finishes early and the brain starts to wander!

[balzi]

Edit: Even putting DRM issues aside, what you've described is also an argument for avoiding proprietary formats. Strictly speaking, even MP3 is proprietary (the algorithms are owned and patented by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft). So if you really want to be sure that your music will be unencumbered by DRM or patent restrictions on future media players, you ought to be using an open format like OGG Vorbis...

as I have found. I wonder if OGG is supported by my panasonic portable DVD player? and what would people recommend for ripping my CD collection to OGG? (edit:) because I presume Media Player doesn't do OGG.

[just brew it!]

EAC or foobar2000 are probably your best bets. EAC is the best Windows CD ripper in terms of getting a glitch-free rip, even from marginal CDs. Foobar2000 is great for batch processing/transcoding.

Lately I've been using a mish-mash of Sound Juicer and an assortment of hacked-together custom shell and Python scripts to do my ripping/encoding (all on Linux). But that's just me; I'm pretty sure this is not something you'd want to deal with!

OGG support on commercial players is still a bit hit-or-miss, though it is improving. If you have a wide variety of existing (older) devices you need to support, MP3 is still likely your best bet.

[Voldenuit]

Bigpond is shutting down their WMA DRM server in Australia. So your music won't play anymore*.

That's what happens when you buy DRM crap (and I'm not just talking music, it's gonna happen to books, games, TV shows and movies).

* There was some talk about a period to get DRM-free versions of songs you already bought, but I don't know how to go about it nor whether that's expired or not too.

[balzi]

... an assortment of hacked-together custom shell and Python scripts to do my ripping/encoding (all on Linux). But that's just me; I'm pretty sure this is not something you'd want to deal with!

actually I'm into python and shell scripting. I am a little bit of a newbie at awk and sed, but I get the basics done. Python was something that interested me but precious little work was ever done with it.
Having said that, I have no Linux boxes (?boxen?) at home.. just one machine, but I could rip it all at home and transfer to home on USB key. but I think you said it was all for batch-processing, which doesn't apply when i'm ripping from CD all over again.

have a good weekend. thanks for tips brew-man!

[balzi]

Bigpond is shutting down their WMA DRM server in Australia. So your music won't play anymore*.

That's what happens when you buy DRM crap (and I'm not just talking music, it's gonna happen to books, games, TV shows and movies).

* There was some talk about a period to get DRM-free versions of songs you already bought, but I don't know how to go about it nor whether that's expired or not too.

that's what I read about.
I'll quote the email I got into this post.

Dear BigPond® Music Member,

Remember that BigPond Music won’t be supporting the Windows Media Audio ('WMA') file format after 1 April 2010. So if you haven't backed up any WMA music files you’ve bought from us, you should do it soon.

Any MP3 files you've bought from us won’t be affected. Read further to find out more about WMA files.


Here's why you should back up your music.

After 1 April, you won't be able to download new DRM (Digital Rights Management) 'unlock' keys for your WMA music.

As long as you keep using the same computer and operating system, you shouldn't have any trouble playing your WMA files. But if you try to move them onto a new computer or operating system, they won’t work if you don’t transfer their DRM keys as well


Besides, backing up your collection is a good idea – for your MP3 files too.

So here's what to do.

You can back up your music collection now, by either:

1. Burning it to audio CD (Click here to find out how.)

2. Backing up your WMA files and licences separately (See how to do it here.)

Additional information on WMA's & DRM.

All our music was in the secure WMA file format when BigPond Music started. Whenever you downloaded a WMA file you downloaded its encrypted Digital Rights Management (‘DRM’) code at the same time.

DRM is a kind of lock and key system. The key unlocks the music so that it’ll only play on your software. The downside of this security is that WMA downloads won’t work on popular systems like Apple’s iPod and iTunes software. It’s also hard to move WMA files without downloading a new licence key.

We started selling MP3 files without any DRM or licence key restrictions in August 2008. MP3’s are a much more universal format that works on most digital music players and software. We stopped selling WMA files in March 2009, and only offer MP3 music now.



The BigPond Music Team

you reminded me about that.. *HOWEVER*, 1) it is NOT April 1st yet, 2) I never bought anything from them, and 3) it specifically says "you won't be able to download new DRM (Digital Rights Management) 'unlock' keys for your WMA music." but I don't want new DRM keys - my old ones were working just fine thanks anyway.

maybe I'm getting an unforseen (or carefully disguised to not be publically forseen) side-effect of their new setup.

oh, and for the record, I only got that email because my work internet is with Bigpond/Telstra - I haven't actually bought anything off them ( I don't think ).

[Flying Fox]

That's what happens when you buy DRM crap (and I'm not just talking music, it's gonna happen to books, games, TV shows and movies).

Please read his posts carefully, he didn't buy anything.

OP: sounds like you need to bite the bullet and re-rip everything. If you are also looking into archiving (so you can put the CD away) and have the storage space to spare, you can rip and encode in a lossless format first, such as FLAC and WavPack. Then you can "format-shift" to whatever you need for your various devices. Of course, you need to take care of file access security on your network but that's a different problem. The content mafia is trying to grab more money for format shifting, but until anything concrete is being boughtpassed as laws, it is still ok.

[balzi]

i wouldn't normally resurrect an old thread, but just in case someone wonders what to do about this - apparently you just need to wait. Possibly Windows screwed up something in a auto-update patch of some sort. Whatever happened, all is forgiven as my files are now working again. I noticed a few days ago when i had all my switchfoot albums playing and then realised that some of them would be quite old and 'hey, hang on a minute, I thought at least a couple of those albums would be ripped to protected WMA' .. but everything works. I played a few others things from yesteryear to check it out and yep, it's all good.