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View Full Version : I got burned by Sony's DRM!


Dr.Khron
18th February 2007, 18:52
First off, I've never had a problem with DRM becuase I've never purchased audio files... all of my MP3s are files that I ripped myself from CDs that I own. (EAC & LAME)

A weird situtation popped up with my Sony digital Walkman, NW-S205F. I've been super happy with the unit, its everything I ever wanted from a small, solid-state MP3 player. However, it won't let me copy my homemade, NON-DRM MP3 tracks off of the player!

I recently lost a 320GB HD on my living room file server PC... One of the things I lost was my entire MP3 collection. Not a big deal, I still own all of the CDs, so I can just rip them again. In fact, its a good excuse to redo them all in FLAC.

But thats going to take a few weeks, and it would be nice to have some digital music in the meantime. Viola, my Walkman was 2 GB of my favorite music on it. I was at work when I wanted some tunes, so I plugged my walkman into my work laptop. However, the Sony format strips out the MP3 header, renames the files as .OMA files, and stores the tag informtion elsewhere in some kind of other data file. So, I can directly copy the .OMA files, and rename them as .MP3 files, but then they are completely tagless.

Next, I downloaded and installed the latest version of the Sony Walkman software ("Sonic Stage"), figuring that it would allow me to copy my files off the player into MP3 files on my HD. No such luck, it totally locks you out!

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/2281/errorgr7.png

I swear, I don't even understand what its trying to do. How can it protect un-protected files?
Can anyone explain this to me?

jeffy
18th February 2007, 20:09
http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=7532

Softpedia also led me there (trialware only):
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-CD-Rippers-Encoders/WMAConvert.shtml
http://www.fidex.biz/english/index.php
"It lets you choose the compression level and it preserves ID3 tags for artist, album, title names etc."

If you can do anything with OMA files at all... as mentioned above.

Gerard V
18th February 2007, 23:54
This is the kind of heavy handed "protection" I think we all fear. The problem you have was also experienced by a guy I met who was in the ironic position of being "protected" from copying MP3s he had made of his own guitar playing. As in your case, it was the proprietary Sony format and software that prevented him giving people demo's of his own music. He had to go to a more "open" hardware device.