Yeah, I just read this on the net and I must say that this hugely sucks cause I, for one, have purchased over the years lots of music from them and I read that if I wanna transfer these songs to other computer than the one I have right now after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.And I don't really intend to keep this computer for ever, c'mon I'm gonna change it some day.What am I supposed to do with all this music?

Recently I came across this site :

Spiralfrog Music Downloading
You do need to have Windows Media 11, then you register, download their Download Manager, (which does not take up much space) and then you can start downloading whatever they have.

I think the selection is quite nice but everyone's taste is different. One easy way to see some of the Artists is by looking at the bottom of the page. You can just play it via your computer or you can sync it to a device, and I think 2 devices is the limit. You have to renew your subscription every 30 days. I was there today and downloaded more. It directly downloads the music to Windows Media so there is no importing to do. Each time you go back, at the top of the page it will have a reminder of how many days before you have to renew. I have 26 days left. Then I guess I click on the Renew button.

I can't remember all the specifics, but hop on over and take a look.

M$ provides a turn around for this on its website.

You can just record the audio stream playback with the relevant software (please windows guys, it's not my domain so give inputs, please). This way you get rid of the protection, though you will degrade further the audio material (second encoding). I advise you to make some trial/errors on a few fils and chose the less destroying format/bit-rate.

I'm sure there will be a class action, so watch out!

DRMs are evil…

Drm is more then evil,it is a huge pain in the back if I may say so.There must be some solution for those protected files.I heard that burning the files to audio cd's and then re ripping them to mp3's on the computer might get rid of the DRM.But still this does not look like such a good choice cause of all the cd's you would need and the wearing out of the cd rom.

The main reason this is an issue to capture in some way the audio stream while playing it back, is either you're re-encoding the file (mp3, ogg vorbis, whatever) and it's lossy, so you deteriorate it in order to save it, or you're using for example 16/44 audio CD quality in aiff, wav whatever, and you're recording then files with new interpolated material…

either way, it's bad for the file…

One simple move that should have been taken by M$, would have been to make available same quality files as the one you bought with DRM but without them, and then no issue. You've got the file in the quality you've bought first hand… But it would be respectful for customers… (shame!)

I could't agree with you more, as long as they decided to close it it would have been nice to offer some sort of copies of those files without the drm protection. But they don't, although I'm sure there must be an easier way around this.I also got music from them and I don't feel like waking up some day that for whatever reason my files won't work; using some sort of soft that get rids of the drm seems like a good ideea even if the quality is a bit downgraded.I'd rather have some files than no files at all.The questions is, what sort of soft should I use?My idea of burning and reripping isn't a good way around this.

This post has been edited by Benton_as: Mon 5 May 2008, 11:11

Try Tunebite,it's easy to use and it solves all tyour dilemmas with the protected files.IIt records the original files as they play and saves them as unprotected ones, so you should be able to convert all that music you fear you might lose some day.That burning and ripping you were talking about means wasted cd's and wearing out of the cd rom.At least that's what I think.

Well, at least it's good news that I get to keep all my music and don't wake up one day that it's a worthess junk that takes up space on my computer.So this tunebite you're speaking about, what exactly does it do?It's not something illegal right?

This post has been edited by scou_verner: Tue 6 May 2008, 14:19

You PAID to have the right to play these files, they remove you the ability to play them according to the licence, I think it's fair trade to do so.

Watch for an eventual class action, as I wrote before, M$ and the majors ot providing a decent way out is no fair trade.

I don't know the US legal system enough to be sure of this but for example, in France, when you pay the rights for a tune on any format, you are suposed to be entitled to play it on ANY other format. Surprisingly, majors play a game of making us pay each time the rights any time we buy the same tune on a different format… Rights are supposed to be once upon a time linked to the tune, not the format it is provided on (record, tape, CD, SACD, MP3, whatever) so there's definitely a case of extending income ressources for the ones receiving the rights (not necessarily the artists) to the expense of the right of the customer.

It;s nothing illegal in using Tunebite to convert your drm'ed files, it doesn't crack the drm it just records the files and saves the recordings as files without drm.Of course this should be done only for your own personal use.
I think you should get busy trying to save those files of yours rather than wasting time whining around.