Ripped 100GB of CD's to WMA, then discovered they were protected. Please Help.

[TismeSue]

Hi all, I have a problem. My mum who is not very technically minded, has just ripped her huge CD collection to her hard drive. I was down there recently and copied a few of my old albums only to find when I got back home (the other end of the country) that they were protected. I cannot be there to help her but I said I would let her know how to remove DRM. But I am baffled, I am trying to find the simplest way possible for her to do this, she doesn't use itunes or anything, and she won't need it for anything else. I have explained to her that she can change the settings in WMP so that future rips will not be protected.
Could anyone please let me know the simplest way to do this possibly with batch conversion, as there are so many files.
My thanks in advance.

[TismeSue]

By the way I downloaded FairUse4WM as I wanted to try it out to see how easy it was. Unfortunately I couldn't use it on my computer, it couldn't find any keys.
My Mum's system is vista I believe.

Sometimes FairUse4WM can help:
Music transfer problem (Songs ripped from Audio CDs using Windows Media Player)
But if it is an updated Vista, then there could be problems.

More related threads:
DRM issues with files ripped from CD: Any way to obtain license with POP/receipt/...?
Remove DRM from music files with WMP protection ripped from Audio CDs

[placebo]

Originally Posted by C:\windows\Help\wmp10.chm::/htm/copysettings.htm

Copy protect music : Specifies whether tracks copied from CDs in Windows Media Audio format are protected files. A license is required to play protected files. Licenses help protect the copyrights of artists by preventing illegal distribution. Selecting this check box may prevent you from playing the tracks on another computer.
Note : You should back up your licenses to a floppy disk periodically. If you reinstall or upgrade your operating system, your licenses could be lost even though you retained your protected files.

wow, that is evil, **** M$ Corp!!
i wouldnt and dont know what to do here. i am just assuming that FairUse4WM could be the only potential help since it strips off the DRM-header of DRM-protected WMA-files. feel free to test the following on your own PC and then report it to mum ( )

1. take a phys. original cd and insert it to CD-ROM drive of your PC
2. use WMP9/10/11, i.e. the same version of windows media player as mum's, to rip *your* audiocd. rip with DRM-protection to lossy *.WMA-format.
3. use FairUse4WM to un'DRM your just ripped WMA's

Hope this works! luck.

EDIT:

i ripped with copy protection. FairUse4WM doesnt recognize DRM. WMP10 doesnt state any restrictions. I dont see any restrictions either. check yourselves:
01 Track 1.wma (link expires after 1 week thx)

all i could do. bye.

Originally Posted by placebo

i cant help because i never had such a situation before (zero experience). i dont understand how it is possible to rip CDs to *.WMA (on hdd) with DRM-protection. whose DRM-license is it (current owner) and who is the issuer of the license? 100GB equals ~1300-1400 cds (taking an "average bitrate" and "average album total length").

Unfortunately novice users don't know about high quality CD ripping software (like ExactAudioCopy) and codecs (like lossless FLAC), so they use Windows Media Player for ripping CDs. And M$ Evil Corp has set WMP to rip CDs to WMA with DRM protection by default. It is easy to disable this by going to Settings, but novice users usually don't know about the DRM evil until they use the limit of getting licences (for the files the users ripped from their own CDs!)

[TismeSue]

Many thanks Stream Recorder, I will send her in the right direction, and hopefully she will manage to do a good chunk of that before next time I go down there, because I'm sure it will become my job.

Placebo this is something my mum has done over a long time, I maybe worded it wrong when I said she has just ripped, just finished ripping is what I meant.
As a family we are mostly avid music lovers so afternoons at the computer playing music while ripping would be enjoyable rather than a chore.

Stream Recorder, fyi, I checked out WMP rip settings to find out what she had been doing, and actually WMP does support Lossless ripping with WMA Lossless, not that she would have had the space for that with her huge collection, even if she had have known.

Anyway, thanks again for your help.

Originally Posted by TismeSue

Stream Recorder, fyi, I checked out WMP rip settings to find out what she had been doing, and actually WMP does support Lossless ripping with WMA Lossless, not that she would have had the space for that with her huge collection, even if she had have known.

Thank you. I really forgot that the latest versions of WMP indeed support lossless WMA.
Anyway the major problem was that the default format was WMA with DRM, not WMA without DRM, not MP3.

[TismeSue]

Absolutely, I imagine a hell of a lot of people would fall into the same trap as it is set as the default. If they must make it the default setting then it should be made more obvious. Older people especially tend not to go into the settings but accept the default way to carry out operations like these.