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What is DRM? Why do we remove DRM WMA?
Have you ever downloaded music from Windows Media Player, iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, Spiral Frog? These popular music download programs among the music fans always come with a disgusting word - "DRM".
DRM (Digital Rights Management) - The anti consumer copy protection that prevents you from using music in a way that suits you. For example, if a WMA you downloaded from WMP(windows media player) that has DRM, you can only play it back on a compatible device, so if every piece of music had DRM on it you would need to buy the same track on CD to listen in your CD player or car, as an iTunes download to play on your iPod, as a ms store download to play on your Zune etc, but since you paid for it once you shouldn’t be forced to pay for it again and again and again, remove the DRM and you can play it on your phone, iPod, Zune, PSP, CD player, pc, and anything else that you can listen to music on.

How to remove DRM from WMA?
I got a few methods listed below:
1. Burn and rip
Actually, there is a common free method to remove DRM WMA with 2 steps, Step 1 Burn the protected WMA to a CD
Step 2 Rip them off to your computer, then the DRM should be removed from the WMA files.
But it’s not very convenient and may wear out your CR-ROM. And windows media player can only burn and rip the WMA (or you will need DVD copy and DVD ripper for other formats).

1. Re-record
One of the most common and simple technology is recording the DRM protected WMA then use an ordinary converter to convert the recorded and unprotected files. Because this technology is easy to realized and easy to support more DRM formats besides protected WMA it is welcomed by most of the DRM converters like the SoundTaxi, NoteBurner, etc.
But there are some disadvantages for those programs.
1. The conversion speed won’t get much improvement due to the long recording process.
2. Much audio and video quality could be lost during the recording process.

2. Hook
Hook is another new and more complicated technology which can be used to remove the DRM from protected WMA files. Comparing with recording process, these sorts of programs have much higher conversion speed, but it’s hard to make it support some DRM formats with new and lofty encrpytion tachniques.
And as far as I know, Daniusoft was one of its supporters. After giving a test for some free trials I found it is convenient to remove DRM from protected WMA files with Digital Music Converter, it also supports other formats conversion and audio extraction from WMV.

Ok, Hope you can get some useful resources from this article (How to remove DRM from protected WMA should not annoy you anymore). If you have any suggestion or want to do some modification please feel free to contact me (bdylan4@gmail.com).
Remove DRM from your favorite music to release you music life.
Have Fun.

MelodyCan has a capability to watch an arbitrary media library folder and convert media content as soon as it was downloaded from a music provider or simply copied to that folder. This is implemented by means of ‘Automatic Conversion Folder’ engine and can be configured with corresponding fields in MelodyCan settings dialog.

When converting your audio content you have of choice of such destination audio format:

* MP3 – MPEG1-Layer3 nowadays is most widespread audio format which is supported by almost any audio/video devices.
* AAC – MPEG4-AAC is audio format natively intended for MPEG4 movies. Now it is supported by many well-known portable audio devices such as iPod.
* WAV – Uncompressed audio is right choice if you plan to rip your converted audio files to audio CD or edit your audio content with a waveform audio editor.

When converting your video content you may choose from one of following video formats:

* MPEG4 for iTunes (M4V file extension) – is intended for iTunes-compatible video devices such as iPod.
* DivX for home video systems (AVI file extension) – is intended for DivX-compatible video devices such as home or portable DVD/DivX video players.

Whatever kind of media you need to convert, Melodycan is best choice for you.

I prefer to use Daniusoft Digital Music Converter which could convert all popular music as you want.

You can get more useful information about DRM here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

Does it support Rhapsody music?
I got a bunch of wma files from it, but can't play it with my iPod.
Thx

Yes,the Rhapsody and Napster music files all have DRM protection, think it should be used on others as well.

Melodycan is a universal audio file converter, which supports all popular audio formats: wav, mp3 (MPEG Layer-3), wma (Windows Media Audio) etc. This software allowas you to convert
drm protected and non-protected file formats. Moreover MelodyCan converts audio books, any format Media Player,
any format QuickTime Player, any format Rhapsody or RealPlayer supports. This software is easy to install and use
with a very handy and clear user interface. You can try free trial version

When converting your audio content you have of choice of such destination audio format:

* MP3 – MPEG1-Layer3 nowadays is most widespread audio format which is supported by almost any audio/video
devices.
* AAC – MPEG4-AAC is audio format natively intended for MPEG4 movies. Now it is supported by many well-known
portable audio devices such as iPod.
* WAV – Uncompressed audio is right choice if you plan to rip your converted audio files to audio CD or edit
your audio content with a waveform audio editor.

Thanks so much
Now I have got all my protected music on iPod with this Digital Music Converter
It's so exciting.

Thanks so much
Now I have got all my protected music on iPod with this Digital Music Converter
It's so exciting.

Thank you!

I recommended this music converter to my friend but he said it can be installed in Vista OS,

It's so regrettable. Any suggestion?

You mean Digital Music Converter can't be installed in Vista OS?
I'm using the XP, but I found the newest version of WMA to MP3 Converter is compatible with Vista OS on their site, and the function are similar as Digital Music Converter, so you can have a try.
Hope it helps

Tunebite works as well for converting protected and unprotected files.

silvester.rollo wrote:

Tunebite works as well for converting protected and unprotected files.

Thanks for your suggestion.

You're welcome .nice job with this guide, by the way.