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• * They sell software that's full of bugs, and won't even be playable for several patches... or maybe they don't even admit that there are problems.
  
• * They sell software that won't actually run on any state-of-the-art machine without half of the highly-touted features turned off.
  
• * They sell software that requires some sort of crappy upgrade that you really don't want.
  
• * They are trying to strongarm you into moving from a model where you buy software once, to a model where you buy the same software over and over and over and over again.

There is NO commercial software that will convert a DRMed WMA file into anything

-1, Wrong.

TuneBite will. It installs 4 fake sound cards, and then lies about the sample rate so that on each of the 4 conversion channels you get 3.8x real-time performance. It works great, and doesn't rely on the DRM being broken in any way.

Has DRM'ed WMA files been broken yet? I got a song for free, and I have been unable to find any tools to crack it. I had to use TuneBite to record it from WMA to MP3 via analog (loses quality) in Windows. Also, none of my Linux media players can play DRM'ed WMA files. :(

Why have the French taken so much interest in iTunes and music downloads to the iPod? Where is the French interest in this? Are iPod's hard to come by in France? And some other players don't have a rich selection of music available from their online music stores?

Perhaps everyone in France should just download Tunebite http://www.tunebite.com/, and convert their protected iTunes downloads to readily playable mp3's. Or is there some sort of tax involved in all of this that the French gov't is after...

If you plan to use it for development, you can't go too far wrong with TextPad and WinSCP.

You might also find Tunebite useful, if you subscribe to any online music services.

As long as you are the legal owner/licensee of the tune in question, you can use tunebite to rip to mp3 or wav or whatever. Probably illegal in America due to the DMCA, but I don't think anyone's been arrested for using it......yet......

I am a Napster subscriber, but I don't rent the music. I am listening to the files on my iPod as I type this. I can do this because I found a nifty little program that plays the mp3 in Windows media player (or iTunes) and records the output to a DRM free copy of the file. Then I can do what ever the hell I choose with it. It even has a digital replay mode so I don't have to wait in real-time for the song to play. I'm paying and I'm playing.

http://www.tunebite.com/

Why not use TuneBite instead? http://www.tunebite.com/

Personally, I get my songs from Yahoo Music where the songs are 79 cents (since I'm a Yahoo Music Unlimited member). And the downloaded songs are 192kbit/s (the best you can buy online) as protected WMAs. Then, I use Tunebite to convert these songs to unprotected mp3/wma/ogg files. Now, these files can be used easily since they are unprotected. You can even convert the DRMed songs you get from Apple Store to unprotected wma/mp3 using this cool tool. I bought this application for 19 USD. And, it works like a charm. It is also available to download (only old version - No digital dubbing) via torrents. Also, you dont need to buy an IPod.

In theory (and in practice I'm sure) this degrades the music but I only play them back on cheap headphones and $50 computer speakers. I can't tell the difference.

Probably for the worse, however I still enjoy it.

I have long since been a subscriber of Yahoo's Launchcast -- their internet radio station that could play music based on your ratings. And as a work day went on, I would tag songs 1, 2, 3 or 4 stars, or even "Never Play Again". Yahoo would learn my tastes and has since then, recommended countless songs that I'd never have heard before. Bands like Nightwish, Evanescence, Lacuna Coil are bands I heard of before many, many people.

Now with the advent of the Yahoo Music Store, the same great benefits exist except that I can put them into my MP3 player and take it all to go. I admit freely however, that I convert all my music OUT of the .WMV format using Tunebite and back into MP3 so the music is *mine*. Yahoo's Music Store ALSO recommends music to me based on the same ratings I've made over the last three years, and I see the technology of recommending songs getting better and better as my choices are getting more broad, and now with the Music store, even easier to acquire. Before the YMS, I would listen to a song on Launchcast and then scour the P2P networks or the web to find the song to add to my collection. Many times, and I'd say more often than not, I would go out and buy the CD.

Now I'm paying a low monthly fee ($4.99 prepaid one year in advance) to get my grubbies on all the music I can handle. And probably, there are people that take advantage of the $5 price a LOT more than I do. But as a casual music listener, who is always looking to find new types of music that might pique my interest, Yahoo's Music Store has nailed my needs on the head solidly, and I'm glad to pay for that benefit. If you don't want to pay $5 a month to get unlimited downloads, then the RIAA has a good reason to go after you; however given their greed they want to come after me as well.

Oh well... at least if they bust down my door I can prove I'm legit :)

I do essentially what you describe, but in a less complicated way.

My library has a program like this, which I often use to check out audiobooks. But, of course, these books will not officially work with my iPod.

To get around this, I use a program called TuneBite to convert the .wma files downloaded from the library to high quality .mp3 files. TuneBite does not work properly with very long audio files (longer than six hours or so), but other than that works fine. (I have a 14-hour copy of Mansfield Park I have never been able to successfully convert, but every other book has worked fine.)

After TuneBite is done creating high quality .mp3 files, I use RazorLame to re-encode them down to 56k, which is quite adequate for audio books, resulting in nearly indistinguishable sound quality, and seriously reduced file sizes.

Then I load them on my iPod, and happily listen to them in my car and at the gym.

Oh, and of course I delete the .mp3 files when I'm done with them. I understand that overdue library books are a serious issue, and I wouldn't want to accidentally violate the DCMA or otherwise commit a felony by listening to too much Jane Austen... ;)

If someone knows a better solution for getting .wma audio onto my iPod, I'd love to hear it.

Try Virtuosa or Tunebite (which is what I use).

The jig is up. I was hoping I'd finish my 14-day trial before anyone found out about this. Oh well, I got 8 gigs already, and I can get more today.

I use a program called tunebite that plays the files back and records them to MP3, as well as copying over album/artist metadata from the tags.

Hopefully I can get everything copied before they fix it (if they ever can fix it).

While I wish it was easier to converted the protected files to mp3 a little easier, I cannot fault Apple for making it difficult. They have a good catalog and I can get any song from their store for 99 cents. I imagine that part of the reason they got so many artists to participate was offering some protection of their music.

Having said all of that, it ,I>is possible to convert the music...although it does take a little more work than simply exporting the files. There are several ways, some included here:

http://www.bpurcell.org/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry& entry=1036

http://www.tunebite.com/index.php?affiliate=1002

I also believe you should be able to burn your protected songs to a CD and then ripping them to mp3 from the CD

I do not profess to understand the legalities of all of this, but these are the ways to do it. If you are converting this music to mp3 for personal use, I believe you are allowed to convert it legally.