An update on WMA license expiration issues for purchased content: We’d like your assistance!

BTW is there any good software that strip this DRM crap out of my WMAs?  I'm thinking I don't want to have to worry about the other music I bought on Zune when it goes out of business.

The Easy Part:
The only way is to burn your collection (manually) to CD-R, using the Zune software - since it holds the license of the media.
This process also strips the meta-data of the songs/album that was encoded in the DRM protection.

The Hard Part:
When ripping the collection from CD-R, back into your Zune software, you will have an Unknown Album {Current Date & Time} stuck in your Zune folders & software.
You will have to manually edit (right-clicking) the Album in the software, and then maybe you will get lucky with trying to "Find album info" - sometimes this is more of a pain.
You will still have to edit the album via Windows Explorer, or you will have a nightmare searching for your music.

The Zune Rip Options:
There are a few format options you can use when ripping; three different WMA formats - some are adjustable, and an MP3 format. MP3 (MPEG-3) is more recognizable by other devices, although iTunes will convert unprotected WMA to M4A (MPEG-4) which is usable with many popular players & software.



Hope this helps somewhat. The songs will all be in a "lossy" state, you won't have the same music quality as you originally paid for. This is the only workaround that Zune is providing, other than a supposed fix that is not publicly documented or recorded as being in-the-works.

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Didgeridoo, Ethnic, Medieval, New Age, Tribal
Don't Throw A Fit, Throw a Boomerang!

 AeroWriter wrote:

No they cannot and will not.  No matter how legit or polite one can be.  I have lost all licences to to WMA thing, reimage Windows, bought new machine.  People do have to buy new computers and reimage computers ya know.  I have asked for limit reset a number of times so I can at least listen to the 20% of content which has not been removed from marketplace to no avail.  Escalation says they feel my pain but they explain their hand are tied.  I find it interesting that Zune won't take a few simple steps to avoid all of this bad noise and possible litigation.

The escalation team has nothing but excuses.

Give me the job, pay me a decent wage, I'll be more than happy to do it and be employed!

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Didgeridoo, Ethnic, Medieval, New Age, Tribal
Don't Throw A Fit, Throw a Boomerang!

I spent three hours with support yesterday and didn't get anywhere either.  A few songs seemed to become playable again in the Zune software.  But I noticed today ones that worked yesterday don't work today.  What is going on?  Escalation told be to reverse download from my Zune to my software.  Can't seem to make that work.  Only saving grace is all my songs currently work on my Zune.  I've had Zune for 2 years and was very happy with it and everything worked until recently.  I can't afford to repurchas all those songs.  Most say invalid user rights on WMA, and also no longer available.  Guess what they are available in the market place to buy....exact same songs, albumn etc.  I just lost my rights...  Guess the new HD I was considering isn't going to be purchased and I may talk with friends and look into I tunes or something else.......  Anyone have any answers?????  Thanks.....

I was lucky. I was only on the phone 45 astounding minutes with customer service. Their final response when I demanded a method to file a complaint was to give me the Microsoft Legal address:

Microsoft Legal
Attn: Zune Legal
1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, Washington 98052

I asked for a refund - they said no. I have a bunch of songs that don't appear to be playing anymore and their answer is that it was removed from the Zune marketplace? What a joke. I have supported the Zune since it came out, and I know there are problems over at Apple with DMR as well. But, this is not acceptable. Goodbye Zune Marketplace....

 

 sadiepoo wrote:

I spent three hours with support yesterday and didn't get anywhere either.  A few songs seemed to become playable again in the Zune software.  But I noticed today ones that worked yesterday don't work today.  What is going on?  Escalation told be to reverse download from my Zune to my software.  Can't seem to make that work.  Only saving grace is all my songs currently work on my Zune.  I've had Zune for 2 years and was very happy with it and everything worked until recently.  I can't afford to repurchas all those songs.  Most say invalid user rights on WMA, and also no longer available.  Guess what they are available in the market place to buy....exact same songs, albumn etc.  I just lost my rights...  Guess the new HD I was considering isn't going to be purchased and I may talk with friends and look into I tunes or something else.......  Anyone have any answers?????  Thanks.....

Not buying another Zune again, and the days in the marketplace is slowly coming to a end. I'm so close to ordering an iPod Classic 120, it's just the things cost about as much as I paid for this Zune 30 GB. The Zune 30 GB still works great, yet I'm lucky to get 6 hours off the battery when it arrived, and the iPod is telling me 36 hours! Is this possible??

Have to get another case, and another in-car recharger as I have a Belkin for my Zune, and I run a cassette-from-stereo adapter from the Zune to the car stereo.

I cannot support a company that does not support it's customers, ever. The only true support is from the Moderators & Volunteers here; who should be given the Escalation Agent's salary, and the escalation team should be on the forums learning from the real experts!





It's not the hardware; it's the lack of support & resolutions with the customer in mind that's faulty.

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Didgeridoo, Ethnic, Medieval, New Age, Tribal
Don't Throw A Fit, Throw a Boomerang!

David,

I recently had to reinstall my Operating System. 

Upon recovery and re-installation of all of my files there are is a small fraction of songs I purchased from Zune that no longer play with the reason you are addressing.  Such as <<Song: The Frershmen - Artist: The Verve Pipe - Album: Villans>>

This song did play prior to the OS reinstallation.

As for the trouble shooting steps, I will need to alocate a considerable amount of time to do this for each of the songs.

David. Still having this issue. One track, which appears to still be available (Respect by Aretha Franklin) on the Album from which it was purchased. Two Fiddler reports on failure.

 

Request Count:  1
Bytes Sent:  133
Bytes Received: 1,560

ACTUAL PERFORMANCE
--------------
ClientConnected: 10:37:04:0505
ClientDoneRequest: 10:37:04:0505
Gateway Determination: 0ms
DNS Lookup:   0ms
TCP/IP Connect:  0ms
ServerGotRequest: 10:37:04:0505
ServerBeginResponse: 10:37:04:0995
ServerDoneResponse: 10:37:04:1035
ClientBeginResponse: 10:37:04:1035
ClientDoneResponse: 10:37:04:1035

 Overall Elapsed: 00:00:00.0530000

RESPONSE CODES
--------------
HTTP/404:  1

RESPONSE BYTES (by Content-Type)
--------------
 ~headers: 315
text/html: 1,245

ESTIMATED WORLDWIDE PERFORMANCE
--------------
The following are VERY rough estimates of download times when hitting servers based in WA, USA.

US West Coast (Modem - 6KB/sec)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.10s
Elapsed Time:  0.10s

Japan / Northern Europe (Modem)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.15s
Elapsed Time:  0.15s

China (Modem)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.45s
Elapsed Time:  0.45s

US West Coast (DSL - 30KB/sec)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.10s
Elapsed Time:  0.10s

Japan / Northern Europe (DSL)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.15s
Elapsed Time:  0.15s

China (DSL)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.45s
Elapsed Time:  0.45s

================
Learn more about HTTP performance at http://www.fiddler2.com/redir/?id=HTTPPERF

 

Request Count:  1
Bytes Sent:  139
Bytes Received: 1,560

ACTUAL PERFORMANCE
--------------
ClientConnected: 10:37:04:1135
ClientDoneRequest: 10:37:04:1135
Gateway Determination: 0ms
DNS Lookup:   0ms
TCP/IP Connect:  0ms
ServerGotRequest: 10:37:04:1135
ServerBeginResponse: 10:37:04:3615
ServerDoneResponse: 10:37:04:3985
ClientBeginResponse: 10:37:04:3985
ClientDoneResponse: 10:37:04:3985

 Overall Elapsed: 00:00:00.2850000

RESPONSE CODES
--------------
HTTP/404:  1

RESPONSE BYTES (by Content-Type)
--------------
 ~headers: 315
text/html: 1,245

ESTIMATED WORLDWIDE PERFORMANCE
--------------
The following are VERY rough estimates of download times when hitting servers based in WA, USA.

US West Coast (Modem - 6KB/sec)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.10s
Elapsed Time:  0.10s

Japan / Northern Europe (Modem)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.15s
Elapsed Time:  0.15s

China (Modem)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.45s
Elapsed Time:  0.45s

US West Coast (DSL - 30KB/sec)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.10s
Elapsed Time:  0.10s

Japan / Northern Europe (DSL)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.15s
Elapsed Time:  0.15s

China (DSL)
---------------
Round trip cost: 0.45s
Elapsed Time:  0.45s

================
Learn more about HTTP performance at http://www.fiddler2.com/redir/?id=HTTPPERF

I have reported an issue to Zune support in regards to 4 albums and 1 indivdual song that I purchased. They assured me that the issue would be resolved in 3-5 business days. It has since been 10 business days and they are still waiting on authorization from the research team as to how to handle the problem. The albums / songs that I purchsed are WMA and they are no longer available via the marketplace as WMA but are available as MP3's. My licenses for the albums and song are still valid according to Zune support but I continue to get an error when attempting to play the songs. All I want is a credit in MS points so that I can re-purchase the albums in MP3 format I don't understand why this is the hardest thing in the world to have happen. I'm getting rather fed up with the lack of responsiveness and the lack of caring about what effect is has on consumers. I'm not a fan of apple or their products but I'm really re-considering my stance on them due to my experince with the Zune support .. I was planning on purchasing one of the new Zune HD's but I just don't know if I can do that in good confidence after this recent issue.   

I have been happily using zune and the marketplace until today when over 100 of the songs that I paid for and downloaded quit working because of this ridiculous nonsense.  This is just unbelievable that microsoft is so inept they can't (or won't) fix this problem.  I'm not buying another thing from the marketplace.  Everyone flood TWITTER about this and as soon as they see a dip in their daily revenues the problem will get addressed.  Also send messages on Twitter to @brianseitz .  He's supposed to be on the zune team maybe that will get his attention.

So this was THE BIG FIX eh? All those songs I barely got to play, the one's the Zune software decided to go randomly tag, and for those two songs that were never received now have been changed to C00D135C.

The Download button changes to Pending, which changes to Buy. That's THE BIG FIX we been waiting for?


Incidentally, Zune lost a customer. Bought a new iPod 160GB, anyone want to buy a used 30GB Zune? It works, the software on the other hand likes to choose randomly what remaining DRM protected songs it will allow to play. Of course the remainder have already been backed up, it's the ones that never got the chance to be backed up that was waiting for THE BIG FIX to fix playback on - so that maybe I could get them backed up. But noooo..... have to Buy them AGAIN.

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Didgeridoo, Ethnic, Medieval, New Age, Tribal
Don't Throw A Fit, Throw a Boomerang!

Over half of the protected content I purchased from Zune will play, that is 82 songs!!!!!  I'm looking through this thread and don't really see a resolution, i"m I now just out of this money????

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Beta_t