[scottthorton]

I have a small restaurant. We have a dedicated hard drive with about 300 songs paid for by me but purchased by our then general manager. Needless to say, he quit, taking his lap top with him. As he used his iTunes (http://all-streaming-media.com/downloadable-audio-and-video/iTunes-Store-online-music-and-video-download-service.htm) account to purchase the music, we cannot play any of the songs as the are asking for his password. (He is not welcome anymore nor is he terribly cooperative). Is there a program we can use allow us to play the music? We tried some software that essentially burns the music to another hard drive but we still need his password to to do this as it apparently just rerecords the songs, but as we have no ability to even play them, are we out of luck. Any help?

[Stream Recorder]

You need valid licenses to play DRM-protected music or remove DRM protection from it.


The whole DRM thing seems to be a big scam. It doesn't stop piracy, but puts lots of restrictions onto users of legally purchased files:

You can't play legally purchased content on any device you have
In many cases you can't play legally purchased content after re-installing an OS, system crash, system upgrade,...


Even big services can leave their business without caring about customers. And there were much more smaller companies that died leaving people with unplayble content they have paid for.

Unfortunately you can't remove DRM before getting working licenses. The biggest problem is that people realize it when it is too late.

What you can do?

Spread the word about DRM removal software (http://undrm.info/remove-DRM-protection/)
Tell your friends about your story. Tell them to remove DRM (http://undrm.info/remove-DRM-protection/) from all their DRM protected content, inclusing music, movies, TV shows, TV episodes, educational videos, ebooks,...
e-mail your friends, contact them via Facebook and other social networking web-sites, create forum and blog posts.

Vote against DRM protected content. Use services that offer DRM-free music, video,... Or at least remove DRM protection (http://undrm.info/remove-DRM-protection/) after getting any DRM protected content.

[scottthorton]

Major bummer. This guy is holding us up for our entire music library which we spent quite a bit of money on. (for us). I refuse to give him the satisfaction of paying him for our music. He is a blackmailer at this point. So, without his password, we are done?

[Stream Recorder]

Major bummer. This guy is holding us up for our entire music library which we spent quite a bit of money on. (for us). I refuse to give him the satisfaction of paying him for our music. He is a blackmailer at this point. So, without his password, we are done?
The best thing to do is to get the password, remove the DRM and let him change the password.

[scottthorton]

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately he is holding us up on some other items as well. Looks like I will be buying more music!!. At least we know the titles. THANK YOU for helping.

[scottthorton]

One more question if you don't mind. Some of the music I have on the hard drive is from c's we own others (300+) I am guessing is connected to the account we do not have the license for. Is there a way (software or otherwise) to search my hard drive to identify the music files which are password protected? (Right now we have to go through each individually and click it, etc...)

[Stream Recorder]

Why don't you just run DRM removal software (http://undrm.info/remove-DRM-protection/)? It will give errors or something in case of DRM protected music that can't be opened, but will remove DRM from music it can handle.

[GoldSaint]

It is correct. I agree that you need to use DRM-removal software for this purpose. I always use it in such cases. And it helps.

[GoldSaint]

If it helps you I usually use this program Soundtaxi (http://undrm.info/remove-DRM-protection/SoundTaxi-Convert-DRM-protected-music-from-Windows-Media-Player-iTunes-Napster-Yahoo-Music-Rhapsody.htm) I hope my advice will be for the benefit of you.

[Stream Recorder]

If it helps you I usually use this program Soundtaxi (http://undrm.info/remove-DRM-protection/SoundTaxi-Convert-DRM-protected-music-from-Windows-Media-Player-iTunes-Napster-Yahoo-Music-Rhapsody.htm) I hope my advice will be for the benefit of you.
This advice is obviously useless. Soundtaxi (http://undrm.info/remove-DRM-protection/SoundTaxi-Convert-DRM-protected-music-from-Windows-Media-Player-iTunes-Napster-Yahoo-Music-Rhapsody.htm) records from your sound card. Since files can't be played, they can't be re-recorded.

[Sophialing]

In order to prevent unlicensed sharing, iTunes digital files are encrypted by Fairplay DRM technology. But as for iTunes music, they have released from DRM protection from 2009. But if you would like to remove DRM from iTunes purchased music, you can have a try of TunesKit Audio Converter, which can work on Apple music, iTunes music, audiobook, and more.
Maybe you might like to remove DRM from iTunes movies and TV shows for watching them on Android devices. iTunes M4V Converter (http://www.drmare.com/) seems a smart choice for you to do that, since it can work at both iTunes rentals and purchases at 30X faster speed.