I got burned by Sony's DRM!

D

Dr.Khron

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 28, 2002
Messages
259
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!

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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?
 
just because you renamed them does not mean the drm was removed. They were on the walkman with drm, copying them off doesnt remove them. See if you can find a convertor.
 
You didn't read the original post, obviously.

Don't know what to tell you, Khron. This is just what happens when you buy Sony products. There's really not much else one can say in such a situation.
 
I bought my wife an Iriver mp3 player a couple years ago that used proprietary software that would not allow songs to be transferred off of it. A later software update changed that, but the idea is the same that Sony seems to be using. They see it as a way to move protected content from one computer to another. Obviously they determine what's "protected" different than we do. The best thing is boycott products and companies that have aggressive DRM policies. Sony learned nothing from that rootkit deal it seems. Hurt them in the wallet.
 
OK, so I looked and looked for about an hour for a solution to this problem of yours. I found pretty much zero info... This is the Internet! Why is it getting HARDER to find info you want??? :confused:

All I found was that .OMA files are supposed to be for ring tones?!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMA_DRM

So frustrating, and I don't even have this problem myself, LOL! Good luck, and let us know if you figure it out.
 
I think you have to authorize your work computer as an owner of the media through the software. However, I don't know if you only get so many authorizations (Itunes gives you 2 to 3 I believe). Do you have to log in to the software?
 
Man, this is one of the reaons I don't like sony. I wish they would get a clue and wise up. The general public does not want DRM.
 
Ouch! Can't believe the software "had a mind of its own" and did a number to your computer. DRM SUCKS! and NO Sony doesn't care or do they...:mad:
 
Well, it didn't actually do anything to my computer... the dead hard drive was in my living room PC server, and its death had nothing to do with Sony software.

To be clear, the issue is this:
when I moved my completely un-protected MP3 files onto the Walkman with Sony's software, it added some kind of DRM protection that prevents me from copying the files off the Walkman onto my computer. Note that it DID NOT re-encode the files into AFLAC (becuase I set it not to), it just "repackaged" the MP3 file into a slightly different file format.

Anyway, my only goal was to play some music on my work computer, in the interim until I re-rip all my CDs... I came up with a stop-gap solution: once Sony's Sonic Stage was installed on my work PC, I was able to "add" the songs on the player to my music library. So they are now on my hard drive, but they are still in protected format. Therefore, I can play them, but ONLY with Sony's Sonic Stage software. (which is a bit of a resource hog)
 
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