I Took FairUse4WM For a Spin...

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.download.com/3000-20-10574421.html' target='_blank'>http://www.download.com/3000-20-10574421.html</a><br /><br /></div>I was curious about FairUse4WM when we posted about it a couple of weeks ago, but I never quite got around to using it. I grabbed it from <a href="http://www.download.com/3000-20-10574421.html">Download.com</a> today (wow, is it THAT legit?) and I ran it on some files I bought from MSN Music. Frankly, I was amazed at how well it worked. What I normally do with DRM'd music is burn it to a CD, then re-rip it. At first I thought the quality loss of a double-encode would be horrible, but it honestly sounded fine to my ears. So that's what I've done with over 300 MSN Music tracks over the past year. I had four Ryan Starr songs I bought from the Rockstar: Supernova TV show, and a quick couple of clicks and I had songs that were free of DRM. Amazing! Although my preference would be to have all my music in MP3 format (I'm Type "A" that way) I'll settle for having some WMA's mixed in there if it means keeping them in the original format with all the metadata, embedded album art, etc. <br /><br />The problem I ran into though is that I can't find the folder of DRM'd songs - my original downloads from MSN Music. I could have sworn that I kept them, but after searching all over my LAN, I can't find them anywhere...which probably means I deleted them. Drat! I guess I'll have to live with the MP3s. All future DRM'd music is going through this tool though - until Microsoft "fixes" things.

[Jon Westfall]

Type A eh? Then do what I did. First I Downloaded a freeware renamer tool (named ReNamer (http://www.dirfile.com/freeware/renamer.htm)) and then a mp3 Converter that allowed drag and drop + the removal of the original WMA file. Clean MP3s in no time.

[Dyvim]

Is this program related to QTFairUse6 that strips DRM from iTunes AAC files?

[Jason Dunn]

Is this program related to QTFairUse6 that strips DRM from iTunes AAC files?

Unknown - the author has gone to great lengths to try and protect his identity, so I'm not sure that he'd reveal links to other projects. Anything is possible though... ;-)

[ale_ers]

I love the program also, I wish it was around when I made my switch from Napster to Urge. I love subscription services, but it sure is a pain to switch all of your music.

Now after investing all of the time to re download songs, I need to get motivated to run them through FairUse4WM so I won't have to worry about that again.

[Jason Dunn]

Now after investing all of the time to re download songs, I need to get motivated to run them through FairUse4WM so I won't have to worry about that again.

Uh...do I understand you correctly that you're using this program to de-crypt rented music from a subscription service? Isn't that a bit, um, unethical ? Or will you delete all the music if you stop paying the monthly fee?

[ale_ers]

I am continuing to pay the subscription on the music. I just switched services from Napster to Urge, which caused me to have to re download all of my subscription songs. It was tedious, but I imaging that they want it to be, so that you don't switch often.

As far as Fair Use...I have it, but I don't really use it. I'm not planning to download a bunch of songs, run them through Fair Use then cancel my subscription. I would consider that to be the same as stealing songs through bit torrent. I just think that as long as I continue to pay the subscription, I should be able to use the song. Once in a while I want to put a song in a Photo slide show. Is that any different then those people who use it to strip the DRM for their own use?

And yes, if I canceled my subscription, I feel it would only be right to delete the songs. As a matter of fact, I thought of buying all the songs when I switched from Napster to Urge, but the sticker shock made me reconsider. If Fair Use was around I might have tried that, just to save time...but I am probably better off, from an ethical perspective.

Am I in a moral gray area? I think as long as I continue to 'pay the rent' I can use the song as I like.

[sundown]

FYI, linky no worky anymore. A search of Download.com indicates they seem to have pulled it.