How To Play DRM Protected Files On Your PC [2023]

Overview

The article gives a guide on how to play DRM protected files on your PC. At the climax, Illegal Music Sharing Services include a variety of industry-specific audio recording services and Digital Rights Management (DRM) to prevent piracy. Now that DRM for music is largely a thing of the past, how can you cost-effectively edit your music to get rid of DRM protection?

Digital Rights Management, better known as DRM, is a scourge for anyone who has bought online music. By preventing the purchaser from copying or sharing the music, DRM restricts the owner’s actions with the purchased music.

Luckily, there are some tools that can remove DRM from the music you have downloaded. This frees it from the default restrictions and allows you to use it however you like. Here are a few different ways to remove DRM from your music files.

How to get rid of the DRM protection of your music - instructions

Why is it important

If you’re used to keeping your media and digital life within the Apple ecosystem, you may never have noticed the impact of DRM. But when you get off your Apple TV, iPhone, or iPod, the annoyance quickly becomes apparent.

You cannot upload a protected song or album to Amazon Cloud Player or Google Music Play Play the song on your Android device or transfer the song to a new computer without authorizing that computer with your iTunes account. In short, this option severely limits the flexibility of the music you purchase.

1. AppleMacSoft DRM Converter for Mac

How to get rid of the DRM protection of your music - instructions

Previously, any music you bought from iTunes was tied to Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM was so limited that you could only play music on Apple devices.

Fortunately, this is no longer the case. Today, all songs in the iTunes Store are labeled “iTunes Plus”. This means that it is in AAC format and has no DRM attached. But what about all those old songs you downloaded from years past?

In theory, Apple will let you re-download the DRM-free version. However, if you lost access to the original account a long time ago, this is not your option. You need a DRM removal app.

The suggested solution is to use AppleMacSoft DRM Converter for Mac. It integrates directly with iTunes and can remove DRM in bulk. You can save the new audio file as MP3, M4A, M4R, AAC, AC3, AIFF, AU, FLAC, or MKA file, and use this tool to remove DRM from Apple audiobooks.

2. MovieAudio

How to get rid of the DRM protection of your music - instructions

Many tools that can remove DRM from music use the analog hole. For those who don’t know, analog vulnerability is a term for the phenomenon whereby any digital audio or video file can be restored in a balanced and clear manner as soon as it becomes visible to humans.

But this approach has a downside. Using a sound card on your system can result in a significant loss of quality. MuvAudio is different. It uses a digital conversion process to preserve the sound quality of the original file.

MuvAudio can convert DRM-protected file formats that can only be read on certain devices to files that are not recognized by the device. The application can read the main formats as well as some others such as SPX, MPC, APE, OFR, OFS, TTA, and MPE. Seven output formats are supported: MP3, M4A, WMA, OGG, FLAC, WV, and WAV.

Some of the app’s other features include the ability to split long audio tracks into shorter files, and a way to edit the DRM-protected file’s metadata before creating a DRM-free version. The trial version of the application allows you to remove DRM from 60 songs. If you need to fix more tracks, you will have to pay for the full version.

3. Audacity

How to get rid of the DRM protection of your music - instructions

If you’d rather save money and use the “analog hole” approach to remove DRM from your music files, you’ll just need a simple audio recording app. Both Windows and macOS ship with this application as an integrated part of their respective operating systems.

However, we recommend that you take it a step further and download a more powerful tool like Audacity.

Use Audacity to Remove DRM on Windows

To use Audacity To remove DRM on Windows, follow these steps:

  1. You must open Audacity.
  2. Select Windows WASAPI from the drop-down menu in the upper right corner.
  3. Click on the “Register” button.
  4. Start playing a DRM-protected track.
  5. Click Stop when the track is finished.
  6. Trim the file to remove the silence at the beginning and end of the recording.
  7. go to File -> Export.
  8. Select Export to MP3.
  9. Name the file and click Export.

Use Audacity to Remove DRM on macOS

If you’re using a macOS device, things are a little more complicated. You don’t have a Mac Compact way to record audio output from a PC. As such, you will need to download and install the Other Third Party Soundflower app before you begin.

When you’re ready, use the following step-by-step guide:

  1. Go to Apple -> System Preferences -> Sound.
  2. Click the Exit tab at the top of the window.
  3. Find Soundflower (2ch) from the options menu.
  4. Open Audacity and go to the settings menu.
  5. Go to Devices -> Recording.
  6. Locate Soundflower (2ch) in the “Device” drop-down menu.
  7. Click on the record button.
  8. Start playing a DRM-protected track.
  9. Click Stop when the track is finished.
  10. Trim the file to remove the silence at the beginning and end of the recording.
  11. go to File -> Export.
  12. Find Export As MP3.
  13. Name the file and click Export.

There are two drawbacks to using Audacity to remove DRM music. First, you need to fully play all DRM-protected tracks. If you have thousands of DRM-protected songs (DRM) you are trying to work with, this may not be practical.

Secondly, you are creating a completely new file. Thus, you will lose all Metadata from the original file. Again, if you’re working with hundreds of songs, that’s a huge extra burden to carry around.

4. Burn music to CD.

How to get rid of the DRM protection of your music - instructions

You can also burn DRM-protected music files to a CD. So, an easy way to bypass DRM is to create a CD with the tracks you want to edit and then immediately burn the CD to Computer Music Player. The only requirement is to use the Music Player on a Windows or Mac system. It has the ability to burn CDs. Most of the best music managers on both platforms have this feature.

Naturally, your computer also needs a CD-ROM drive. If not, you can have  Rioddas External CD Drive at Amazon. And remember that if you use this technique, you won’t even need to burn a real CD. You can download an application like TuneClone to create virtual CDs – AKA ISO files – and then play them on your device.

Remove DRM from other media

Music is not the only media type that suffers from DRM protection. some audiobooks Movies, series, and e-books are associated with DRM. But don’t worry. Just like audio files, you can remove DRM from these types of media as well.

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