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General discussion

DRM?!!

Jul 15, 2005 1:24AM PDT

For years I have been happily downloading tracks on various p2p programs, playing them on my comp without caring about anything much except the music. I know I am the scum of the earth for not paying money to the record companies/artists etc. but I like music and I have lots of it.
In the past few months I have been spending less time in front of my computer and more time out and about. I want a portable HD mp3 player that will take all my mp3s and wmas and play them without question. I don't really understand anything about DRMs so they worry me a little bit, I can't find any straight forward info on them and don't really know if they will be a problem or not...

Can someone help me out here?...

If the solution involves actually buying all the music that I already have on my comp I am prepared to do that, except there are some mp3s that I can't buy (such as mp3s recorded by my own band!!), will this be a problem?

Basically, the bottom line is this: I have stumbled into a fairly hardcore mp3 player forum and I want to know if I can just shove anything onto an mp3 player and play it (because it doesn't seem that obvious to me).

grateful for any info,

p.s Please be gentle with me, as you can probably tell, I'm not totally up to speed on portable mp3 players (yet).

Discussion is locked

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You should be OK
Jul 15, 2005 4:05AM PDT

MP3 files are not DRM protected and should play on any MP3 player. WMA files can be DRM protected, but are not always. Those that are not DRM protected should play on anything that supports WMA (not iPods, for example, although you could probably convert from WMA to Apple's format).

If the WMA files are DRM protected (which I doubt any of yours are), then you have to get an MP3 player that supports DRM-protected WMA files.

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ya you should be
Jul 16, 2005 11:48AM PDT

ya you should be ok. Usually I think its the online music stores you have to worry about. By the way your not the scum of the earth. I bet half the people here use p2p networking including me.

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Jul 17, 2005 8:54AM PDT

Not half, but all people in here uses p2p

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true
Jul 18, 2005 1:21AM PDT

ya your right