Can't copy DRM protected music to SD card

[PatrickD]

I was trying to copy some music I downloaded from an online music store to my PPC. This music is DRM protected. At first I had no success no matter what I tried. Finally in frustration I performed a hard reset and tried again. After the hard reset it worked :lol: I think the problem was the WMP update for PPC2002. Anyway, the only problem I have now is that I can't copy the music to my SD card. I can copy to my CF card and to RAM, but not my SD card :cry: Has anyone else discovered this problem? Could it be because the SD slot on the Axim X5 is not SDIO?

[Pat Logsdon]

It wouldn't be because the Axim isn't SDIO compatible. My guess is that the DRM probably doesn't allow the song to be copied to any portable device, no matter the format. Can you copy it to a floppy, or burn it to a CD?

What store did you get it from, by the way?

[Janak Parekh]

My guess is that the DRM probably doesn't allow the song to be copied to any portable device, no matter the format.
But he just said he copied it to the CF card successfully. :| My guess is that WMP gets confused by two memory cards? :confused totally:

--janak

[Pat Logsdon]

But he just said he copied it to the CF card successfully. :|
I guess I missed that when I first read it. I'll shut up now. :oops:

[Vincent M Ferrari]

I'm assuming you're using Napster, because just to see if I could recreate the problem, I tried the exact same thing you did.

No dice.

I guess it has something to do with MS's DRM and SD cards, or the way a PPC shows a CF card as opposed to an SD card?

At least you know you aren't the only one having the problem. If someone comes up with a solution, let me know!

[piperpilot]

I have downloaded songs from Napster and installed them on a 256 MB SD card with no problem. However, you can't load them onto the SD card directly by copying and pasting them. You have to use the "Copy to CD or Device" function in WMP to transfer them. And, if you're using a third party player (e.g., PocketPlayer or PocketMusic), you will not be able to play the Napster songs. They will only play on WMP. But, they play just fine on WMP.

[PatrickD]

I purchased the songs in question from www.puretracks.com and used WMP 9 to copy them to my Dell Axim X5 PPC2002 running WMP 8.5 build 12177. According to the puretracks license agreement you are allowed to copy the songs to portable devices unlimited and burn a CD up to three times.

At first I couldn’t play the songs on my device at all. WMP would copy the songs including the license file to the PPC (RAM but not SD) but when I tried to play the songs I would get an error message saying it couldn’t find the license file :frusty: . After many days of fooling around with this, I decided that it might have something to do with the WMP update (found on the MS site) for PPC2002 that I had installed on my PPC. It would not uninstall properly so I did a hard reset and tried again. I tried copying to the SD card, and WMP 9 on the desktop gave me an error message telling me the file was protected :( . I then tried copying to RAM and it worked :D . For a brief moment I was thrilled until I remembered 64mb of RAM could only go so far :| . I wondered if this was done purposely to prevent people distributing illegal music on storage cards. Not very economical at today’s prices but maybe they were anticipating a day when storage cards were dirt cheap :?: . I was about ready to give up when I decided to try copying to my CF card. Bingo it worked. I can live with this, but I find it a bit odd that one works and the other doesn’t. I have formatted my SD card, copied unprotected music, and installed programs to the SD card and it works fine. Just can’t copy protected music :? .

Since most of the new PPCs don’t have a CF card, I don’t want to invest too much money in CF cards. And, I definitely don’t want to buy a new PPC with a single SD slot only to find I can’t copy protected music.

[Janak Parekh]

This is, BTW, what sucks about DRM. :( I've bought a few tracks from the iTunes music store, but only those that were substantially cheaper than an import CD; in general, I'm going to continue buying (unprotected) CDs as at least I have some modicum of control.

I don't know what to suggest at this point. Does one contract PureTracks, Microsoft, or Dell? I envision infinite finger-pointing. :| PatrickD, consider burning it to CD and reripping it. You'll get some loss in quality, but it shouldn't be overwhelming.

--janak

[Vincent M Ferrari]

PatrickD, consider burning it to CD and reripping it. You'll get some loss in quality, but it shouldn't be overwhelming.

This is exactly what I do with iTunes. I buy the album, rip it into MP3 format and play them on my PPC or Rio. Truth is, the sound quality degradation is not terribly noticeable on a portable device unless you have some high end headphones.

I would love to know why it allows you to copy it to the device, and not the storage on the device? I mean, what if you bought a Rio S-35 which has SD expandability... You could only store DRM music on the main memory? What good is expandability if you can't store any music on it?

[Falstaff]

You could avoid these problems by joining eMusic instead, there you can get just plain mp3s, which means no limits, protection, or anything. You can do whatever you want with them. I don't know about selection though.

[Vincent M Ferrari]

I don't know about selection though.

Ain't that always the hitch? :frusty:

[PatrickD]

This is, BTW, what sucks about DRM.
--janak

I agree with you there, and I won't even start with MS reader :evil:

There was some finger pointing going on but the folks at Puretracks did come around and were quite helpful even if they didn't know anything about PPCs. I may copy them to CD and then rip them, but the extra work and time is a hassle. For the time being I am happy listening to them on my CF card, but I guess I'll have to rip CDs when I finally break down and buy one of those shinny new PPCs I've been drooling over :drool:

You could avoid these problems by joining eMusic instead

I don't know if eMusic is available in Canada or not, most aren't (itunes is not). Puretracks is Canadian and has a fairly decent selection. Also I don't want to join or subscribe to any service. I just like to buy what I want when I want.

[doogald]

I think that the problem is that the SD card is SDIO compliant; the Axim and the CF card are not. If you copy an SDIO compliant, DRM licensed file to the SDIO card, the SD card's firmware will not let you access it if the device itself is not SDIO compliant.

CF cards have no such problem, so that was why it worked there.

That's my theory, anyway... ;)

[Vincent M Ferrari]

Hey Patrick, do you have a MMC you can try in that slot?

I'm going to try that from Napster when I get home. Maybe it has something to do with the type of card?

[PatrickD]

I have an 8mb mmc that came with my video camera. I could try copying one song just to see if it works.

I tend to think it has something to do with the SDIO. Now all I need is a PPC with an SDIO slot and I could test that theory :? .

[ux4484]

I've had no such problems with songs from Musicmatch. Once it's burned to a CD, it can be ripped and transferred anywhere....OOOPS! I may have discovered a loophole! Was able to copy it on a SD card directly from the musicmatch download folder and play it with WMP on the AX with no troubles as well.

you may want to un-check the box for "copy protected" music in your WMP preferences on your desktop, it could be tagging the songs so they're unplayable maybe?

[Janak Parekh]

I've had no such problems with songs from Musicmatch. Once it's burned to a CD, it can be ripped and transferred anywhere....OOOPS! I may have discovered a loophole!
He was hoping to get the original DRMed WMA content playing on his Pocket PC, though, as it should. Burning/reripping is always a fallback, although it's rather annoying and leads to a little sound degredation.

--janak