Windows Media DRM Stripped

According to Engadget, Windows Media DRM has been cracked. There is a program around on the internet (FairUse4WM) that lets the user remove the DRM (Digital Right Management) from WMA files.

So what this lets you do is if you have a Napster, Yahoo Unlimited or Rhapsody subscription you can download as many tracks as you like. Run the program on the files and it will remove the DRM which normally would only let you play the files while you are subscribed and would only let you play the files on PlayForSure devices.

In my opinion this is excellent, it means I can now really take advantage of my Napster subscription, not because I want to steal as much music as possible, but because I can now play the tracks from Napster on my Xbox, Creative Muvo NX, Mac Mini and in my car. In the past I couldn't play the songs from Napster on them because they aren't PlayForSure devices.

Napster & the music industry wouldn't be losing any money because I am still paying my subscription. If anything they would make more money because I was thinking about cancelling it because I couldn't play them on the above mentioned.

So I totally agree with this Engadget article.

Yes I can see the music industry having a heart attack at the moment but if they think about it, this tool is actually giving consumers what they want. A way to buy music legally that they can then play more or less anywhere without restrictions. People are still paying but wouldn't have the restrictions. I read a few people mentioning that iTunes' AAC wasn't cracked but its not entirely true months ago Hymn lets you buy your tracks using iTunes 5 and the tracks wouldn't have the DRM on them. This didn't pose as big a problem because iTunes doesn't use the subscription model where you pay a monthly fee and can download as much as you want while you are subscribed.

I wish the music industry would wake up and give consumers what they want, but there is no way they are going to. People could still download any music they want for free via file sharing if they wanted to. But with this people would be paying a subscription charge. I think people would still stay subscribed so they could download new music as it was released!

At some point I will get around to trying it, if Microsoft don't patch it first. Not sure how they would do that in this case?

The only thing I wished was that an iPod played WMA files, you would need to either convert the files to MP3 (losing quality) or you could convert them to Apples Lossess format but the files would be huge.