What to do with "protected.wma"

[BrodyBoy]

A neighbor came to me yesterday, asking why some of her music wasn't in her iTunes library and why she couldn't put it on her iPod. I took a look and found that they were .wma files. When I tried to import them into iTunes (which I believe can convert .wma to .acc), I got a pop-up that they were "protected."

I don't think I've ever used .wma files, so I know zilch about them, what players use them, or how they get protected. She says these are older albums from when she used Realplayer or Music Match (she thinks that's what it was called). She also says she doesn't remember whether they were purchased or ripped......

Does she have any options for using these files? She only uses iTunes now and doesn't even have those other players/programs on her computer anymore, so if she can't get them into iTunes, they're kind of useless.

[LtData]

Re: What to do with "protected.wma"

Can she play the songs in Windows Media Player? If she can't get them to play at all, you might as well delete them. If you can get them to play, there are programs that will record the songs as they play to unprotected files, albeit in real-time.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: What to do with "protected.wma"

Can she play the songs in Windows Media Player? If she can't get them to play at all, you might as well delete them. If you can get them to play, there are programs that will record the songs as they play to unprotected files, albeit in real-time.

Thanks for the reply. (Sorry I didn;t see it earlier.....I don;t seem to get notifications. :()

I'll look into that. From your comments, it seems that turning them into unprotected files is the key? Then I expect we can just convert them into a format she can put on her iPod.

Thanks for the suggestion. Is there any trick or program I need to know for doing this "record to unprotected" process?

[mville]

Re: What to do with "protected.wma"

it seems that turning them into unprotected files is the key? Then I expect we can just convert them into a format she can put on her iPod.

Thanks for the suggestion. Is there any trick or program I need to know for doing this "record to unprotected" process?

Google protected wma files. I'm sure the solution will be posted somewhere on the web.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: What to do with "protected.wma"

Google protected wma files. I'm sure the solution will be posted somewhere on the web.

Very helpful...thanks.