Alright, so I'm guessing the DRM in napster WMV files keeps you from just using the out_disk.dll like you normally would, and that's why you need the output stacker? Also, what is the purpose of the "Force Wave" option. That's something I've never had to do usually.

"Alright, so I'm guessing the DRM in napster WMV files keeps you from just using the out_disk.dll like you normally would, and that's why you need the output stacker?"

Yes- that is the loophole. Try it without the Output stacker, and it won't work. And this will work with more than just Napster's files, but no other service allows you to download unlimited songs from its collection in a protected format like this.

"Also, what is the purpose of the "Force Wave" option. That's something I've never had to do usually."

This is to make sure it doesn't write audio in the RAW format.

at first when i read this, i was like "whats the difference, when you burn to cd you are violating the terms you agreed to when you signed up with napster so you're illegal anyways.." but then I realized one very important benefit of this: the RIAA can't catch you using a file sharing program and then sue you, which is the largest obstacle today to people downloading. So carry on, my computer savvy friend. for you have just won yourself some gold!

It works great.. thanks..

Do I have to listen to the whole song for it to work, or will just opening it up in there solve the problem?

you have to listen to the whole thing, its realtime, but you dont have to burn the .wav, ypu could recompress to mp3/wma and burn whatever later, which would be faster/easier than burning 252 cds

How do I do that?

I listened to the song on winamp, and I tried to burn it with Windows Media Player, and it didn't work. Am I doing something wrong? Do I have to do something to the song after I listen to it, like save it or something? Or is it Windows Media Player?

What you are burning is a raw wave file that is created by the Winamp disk writer. It shouldn't have problems burning with WMP or anything else since there is no DRM in WAVs.

I dont know how to "Load downloaded Napster protected WMAs into your winamp playlist. Can you explain to me how i do that

In your Napster subscription you can download any of the music as DRM protected WMA files. Add them to your Winamp playlist just as you would any file.

I sorry but im not finding the DRM files. Were do i find the DRM files? I am going to Open file(in winamp) then finding napster, then looking at all file types. I dont see any DRM files. Am i looking in the wrong place. I must be taking the wrong approach to this. Please help me, you must think im a idiot.

One of the drawbacks I've found in revealing new techniques is having to help all the folks who cant find their way through it... you end up doing more support than anything else.

On the other end, for those who understand the hack, it's great to get feedback. So great work man. I'm not sure what Napster will do to counter this, but I'm sure that someone will find a way to get embed this plugin into a utility that does it faster and even burns it or converts directly to mp3.

Why not just use Replay Music?

technically a violation of the DMCA.

i wonder if the playback speed would cause issues if you just skip the output to wav step and output to lame using out_lame?

http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=143606

anyone try this?

This, of course, is immoral. The artist/composer won't get a dime.

HA, man this is pretty sweet. the analog hole is totally wide open also, but you know, whateve, this works way better.

You should be ashamed of yourself. You might as well be teaching people how to circumvent cable boxes and shoplifting detection systems. Just because you can do something without taking a physicla good from someone else doesn't make it right. This is not the spirit of art.

So, what would the spirit of art be... making money? No, that's not it, right?

This is not the spirit of art? You are a retard. Enough said.

Thanks for the info on this great source for free music. I will be telling all my friends.

I'm pretty sure the artist (read: the artist's record company) still makes money... just Napster/Roxio's money.

Can anyone PLEASE help? I have Napster I download songs(not buying it)Then I go to Winamp I cant find the DRM files to play in winamp????? I am going to winamp>file>open files>program files>Napster then i click all files in the type of file menu. there is no DRM files there. I have to be looking in the wrong place or completely doing it the wrong way. PLEASE SOMEONE HELP!!!!!!!!

Danimal-
DRM is referring to Digital Rights Management, which is the rights protection on the WMA files you download from Napster. So you are looking for .WMA files, not .DRM files. Sorry for the confusion.

Merv,
Very good post. You've pointed out the fallability of any DRM system. Someone mentioned above that Napster will have to fix this. Since Napster is not the creator of the DRM, they will not be able to fix this. This is a failure in the Windows DRM system and there is no clear way to close this whole.

Also to people trying to exploit this [especially Danimal]: he wrote this not as a how-to guide but to point out a known loophole in the system. If you don't know how to do it, nobody's going to help you here.

[Also, Danimal, my coworkers and I had a good laugh from your posts: "I cant find the DRM files to play in winamp" Keep looking, you'll find it :-)]

DRM = Digital Rights Management. It is not a file extension, so you're not looking for something like "filename.drm". Instead, just load the regular Napster music file and play it with Winamp.

Hah, the high and mighty respond. "Waaagh, artists!" they moan. Fair use is fair use. As long as you don't rent/sell/publish the resultant CDs, you're good to go. See anime fansubs for more info. If you're stuck paying whatever annuity/subscription/per-play royalty the industry wants you to pay, you'll end up paying quite a bit more than if you just bought CDs at stores. Kind of like how you can get a landline phone for $25/mo now with no contract, but people are blissfully snapping up $65/mo 2-year contracts for crummy celphones.

i have the newest winamp installed, but when i run the playlist i get redirected to a windows media update page. not sure whats the problem

Thing is, this'll get you a back catalog - such that it is, but you'll have to keep your subscription going to get the new stuff. That's where they'll make money.

"This, of course, is immoral. The artist/composer won't get a dime."

Actually they are getting paid the same ammount as they would if you were someone using the music on your Creative Zen Micro.

Here is my concern: You start with a compressed WMV file, then go to an uncompresed WAV file. What happens when you recompress the WAV into some DRM-free compressed format like mp3? Will there be noticable quality loss?

Is the imaging equivilent takeing a JPEG, converting it to a TIFF or PSD and then saving it back as a JPEG?

for those of you who can't figure out how/why this works:

basically this is working like a wire coming out of line-out on your computer and then running in back into line-in and recording the input from the output. however it is doing this all in software instead of doing it via physical wires.

this loophole exists in ANY system that allows you to listen to music and it is the reason why the entertainment industry is so keen on implementing recording flags and making everything digital righ up to the display or speakers to disable this. of course this isn't really possible and there will always be a loophole as long as you can see or hear something you can record it. it just might be harder to do.

btw, this isn't actually hacking the DRM, it is actually allowing the DRM to function but it is standing behind the DRM thus the reason why the recording speed must be at realtime.

for those that need visual aid:

file ->
winamp ->
uses wma codec installed on pc which allows it to play legitly because the drm is doing it's thing
output stacker & output_disk -> stacker gives you the ability to allow the windows wma drm playback codec to function at the same time the output to disk is working (thus the loophole).

as for the quality of the recording, yes you will lose quality when you change convert it to mp3. this is simply due to the lossy nature of the source (the napster wma file) added to the lossy nature of mp3. the loophole shouldn't add any noise to the mix (unlike if you were to physically use line-out -> line-in). if you use a good encoder and a decent enough bitrate the loss in quality will be fairly minimal although some folks will be able to tell the difference.

When I play the files in Winamp, with the plugin installed and configured, it will select a file for a few seconds, render a 70 byte WAV file, and move on to the next, repeating the process.
Does anyone else have this problem / know what to do?

You can do this even easier with Replay Music, create MP3s, and have the songs automatically tagged, too. It works great!

Plus it works with ANY subscription service, anda lot of online radio stations, too.

Replay Music is here:
www.replay-music.com

nice commercial for your product, replay music 'fan'... you didn't happen to mention your program also costs $50. astroturf elsewhere howabout?

is there a solution for the Mac?

Kevinofcourse, the Mac equivalent to this process is to use Audio Hijack (I use it all the time to record NPR, songs off of DVDs, etc.) but you'd have to get the Napster software running on your Mac first, and for that I believe you'd need Virtual PC, and I have no idea whether the Napster software will run on Virtual PC.

If the record companies didn't have a stranglehold on music exchange, then artists wouldn't need to sign contracts that force them to have their music distributed with DRM. They could pay the recording industry to do their job and RECORD their work, and then release it independently for a reasonable few cents a track. No one would be wasting their time with such schemes in that case. But until we reclaim the spectrum wasted on analog radio and use it for digital communication, artists are stuck with the major labels and we are stuck with this DRM oppression.

Home taping is killing music.

there's a lot of REALLY smart people on here..

so why aren't they just stealing music through p2p networks?

talk about no seeing the forest for the trees..

"taping is killing home music"

wrong

RIAA is killing music

Taboo, same thing happened for me until I noticed that I add the "out_disk.dll" before the "out_ds.dll" one. Make sure you add them in the order that Marv specifies and it works perfectly. Oh, and also make sure that you don't check the box to output one file.

Nick, with the exception of darknets, the Napster/Winamp combo is probably the best way to get high quality music at a friendly price. I'm sure a lot of the people here also use p2p, but why stick with something like that when there is a better choice?

lol--danimal--thanks for the chuckles! Too bad it was while I was surfing the net with WiFi during my college biology class. The prof didn't find it too funny that I was stiffling my laughs during her lecture. Boy did I get some dirty looks. Time to pay attention....

what happens when you cancel your trial membership. does your encrypted .wma music files get deleted or do they stay on your computer? if nothing happens to them you can keep them on you pc and just download all you want until trial is over then start the burning process.

you can really increase productivity by switching on multiple instances of winamp and running three, four, five, or how ever many playlists your computer can handle at one time - use your 14 days as best you can

what happens to files you download from napster after the 14 day trial is up and you cancel?

This is great, why would I want to pay to RENT my music. This allows me to KEEP the music I legally paid for...he he he.

Does a WAV file sound the same- I mean REALLY sound the same- as a WMA DRM file does? Does the conversion degrade quality at all?

To clarify, does the first conversion degrade quality? If not, and you're concerned about sound quality, couldn't you just leave them as WAV files and play them back on WAV-compatible players? Or is a WAV file huge? I'm clueless.....

Thanks for the great solution - but what this really needs is a link to a good batch-processing freeware app for re-generating id3 tags from the filename.

Anybody tried this:
http://www.magnusbrading.com/mp3ts/

i just tried that, it works great (i tried the latest beta version) here's how you do it:

1) select the directory with the files you have converted to mp3s
2) go to the "Auto tag (from filenames)" tab
3) select "Advanced mode"
4) in the expected file name format type:
_ - _wma.mp3
5) click execute! (you can include sub directories if you need to, and also preview your new tags before you change them if you want)
6) a lot of error messages might come up, but just ignore them
7) you're done

you can then go back into the program and use your new tags to rename the files if you want

woops, apparently that name format didn't come out in the post, here it is again:
TrackNr_Artist - Title_wma.mp3
(with brackets (>) around TrackNr, Artist, and Title

I'll admit to not being quite as computer-literate as most of the people here. So I'm going to just throw this out there.

This ain't working for me. I can set the output file mode to Force WAV, but what about the output directory? I'm a little confused as to what to do with that. If I don't have to do anything with the output directory, what happens next? I tried playing some songs imported from Napster, and nothing seems to happen. Is there supposed to be some indication that the conversion is taking place?

Ok, saw this and thought, so you only get one stream from Winamp, it outputs to WAV, so in effect it strips the "protection" placed on it already? But the limiter is that you have only one playing stream that outputs and you are limited to playback speed. Why not just increase the number of streams that are playing at once? Not really sure how to program that, it would be like having n-number of winamp players doing this at once. Just wondering is that would be possible.

why do you need to burn the wav file to a cd. couldn't you simply convrert the wav to an mp3 on your computer saving time effort and money. oh and to those bitching about depriving artists of their money 99 % of recordings artist dont see a dime from cd sales. they make thei money through touring and ticket sales. only the biggest names see money from cd sales and maddona dont need any more money.

disclaimer stealing music is wrong dont do it. any info on this site is for educational purposes only

or you guys could stop wasting time doing real time wav conversion and download virtuosa!

ahahahah *points and laughs*

enjoy!

thanks "um" but your program costs $40. any more astroturfers?

Oh no! Because of this the artists will have to downgrade from jumbo jets to regular jets! Oh the humanity!

Haha, but seriously, thank you!! Works awesome.

DRM == Don't Rent Music

I've sucessfully used the LAME encoder instead of outputting the files as .WAV

Works nicely.

Regarding compression, quality loss, etc.

Yes, the Napsterized WMA files are lossily compressed ones. This means they're not the exact same as you'd get on a CD but some amount of information has been thrown away in the interest of making a smaller file. This same is true for an MP3.

Converting the Napster WMA to a WAV doesn't change the audio content. It does lose the DRM and various tags indicating title, artist, date, and whatnot. However the WAV file is named with enough of those tags you can still identify it. A WAV file is pretty big as it doesn't have any compression at all. It also doesn't support tags or any other nifty features.

You can re-compress the WAV file to another format with more features.

Going to MP3 is also lossy, meaning it throws away yet more information, slightly different information, then before. How good a file sounds after this is variable - it depends on the original source, the source Napster used, the settings used to create the WMA, the settings used to create the MP3, how they *all* interact, and of course how good your equipment & ears are.

An MP3 will be smaller, but it won't sound as good. How much worse is hard to predict. It'll also be possible to tag with title, artist, date, genre, composer, lyrics, album art, etc.

Another choice is something like FLAC. This is a fairly popular lossless compression scheme. Thus it shrinks a file without losing any of the content. What many folks do is store their original files in FLAC and then transcode 'em to whatever compressed format they need on-the-fly.

Listen to from your PC? FLAC -> WinAmp, play it direct.

Want to create a CD? FLAC -> PCM, you recreate the original CD.

For your portable music player? FLAC -> MP3 (or AAC, or WMA).

For your getting as much music ass possible on your portable music player? FLAC -> MP3 (or AAC, or WMA) at some really high setting.

Ten years from now? FLAC -> whatever we'll be using then.

Finally, I'll put a plug in for my preferred tagging software (no connection to it beyond paying the US$30 shareware fee long ago): Tag&Rename. I like it for it's ability to pull in album art, reviews, etc. and embed them in the files or folders. Also that it supports a lot of music file types, and I find it easy to work with. YMMV.

buck09

How do you configure the output from .wav to using the LAME encoder?

Does this apply to all music on Napster, or just the ones on the "Napster to Go" service.
Thanks...

aquatic trip - Thanks for beta testing the tagging software - looks like we've got a complete solution.

FYI All - Here's a better open source tag&rename tool.

http://massid3lib.sourceforge.net/

Don't ask me for tech support - in fact, don't post to this discussion asking for help learning how to use your computer. If this stuff is really that complicated for you maybe you're better off paying the $14/mo...

Maybe I'm stupid. I downloaded the free version of Winamp, and it doesn't seem to support the .WMA files. If I click "Add-> Add File" the Napster WMAs don't appear when "All supported types" is the option; they only appear when I choose "All files." Then, they appear in the playlist, but when I click play, it just moves quickly from one song to the next without playing anything.

FYI, I featured this hack on my podcast (#3) on Monday. livejournal.com/~geekcast

Yeah, nobody use this thread to ask for help. Me and my fellow super-nerds don't have the time to comed down off our ivory towers to lend support to the peasants who don't spend all day in front of their computers playing warcraft and hosting Star Trek-themed podcasts on the latest hacking tips. Go back to your jobs and your "girlfriends," losers.

Looks to me like the DRM is working.
I've configured the pluggin. It works to convert my "clean" mp3s into wavs, but when I drop in the drm-wma file it just produces a 4Kb file with nothing in it.

Something is broke on my machine or M$ has fixed this problem.

would be great if anyone could suggest an application for mass convert ?

Very clever!!!

Found another option!!!

Instead of loading the out_disk.dll into the stacker, download the "lame out" pluggin for winamp and install - this will put a file "out_lame.dll" in the pluggin folder. Load this in place of the out_disk.dll file in the stacker!! Configure it as you please!!

Voila!!! compressed audio files with tag info!

I'm having the same problem as several people have mentioned. I double checked the order of the dll's (as Stephen suggested), and I've added them in the correct order. But, I still can't play the wma's. (In fact, the only way to add them to the playlist is to drag and drop. If I try to use the menu, it doesn't see them.) When I try to play, it spends about 2 seconds on each one, then moves on to the next. No wav of any size is ever created, and the wma never plays.

Any other ideas?

I had the same problem.
But the lame hack posted above fixed the problem for me.

umm, hello? does anyone read the comments in here before posting?

the last 15 comments and questions have already been posted and answered at the top of this thread. why not take a few minutes and read the thread before posting the same things over and over?

- the problem of having small files outputted has already been discussed by several people with the solution
- the lame recording has been discussed (by me)
- how and why this works has been discussed (by me)
- this also isn't a hack, it is a workaround (as i explained above)
- if you have a program that can do this more efficiently suggest it but don't astroturf your companies software for a little attention. that's just sad and very lame.

btw, here's a hint to those of you who can't get wma's to decode. make sure you have the latest windows media player installed. THIS WORKAROUND WON'T WORK WITHOUT IT AS IT REQUIRES WMP CODECS INSTALLED ON YOUR SYSTEM.

BOTTOM LINE: If you don't want to read the above thread then don't bother to post as it is highly UNLIKELY you will get a response if your question has already been answered in the thread! i know you are probably so giddy over the prospect of stealing piles of music that you just can't help yourself but please...

Hey Hollywood: you're a pompous a$$.

First of all, the problem of only playing a few seconds has been mentioned several times, but no "solution" has been offered, other than Stephen who said:

"Taboo, same thing happened for me until I noticed that I add the "out_disk.dll" before the "out_ds.dll" one. Make sure you add them in the order that Marv specifies and it works perfectly. Oh, and also make sure that you don't check the box to output one file."

Well, I made sure they were in the right order, but it didn't work.

Now, believe it or not, you actually posted the correct solution at the end of your little whiney self-important rant (and it was the first time it's been pointed out): You must have WMP 10 installed. I had thought this was a requirement of Napster, and didn't have anything to do with Winamp. Turns out that's not the case. I had downloaded WMP 10, but hadn't installed it yet when I tried to decode the wma files in winamp.

So, instead of ranting and raving and (falsely) saying the answer was already posted, you might try being civil. A simple post stating that you MUST have WMP 10 installed would have been more than sufficient. Your condescending rant was unwarrented and just makes you look like an a$$.

Can you extract the audio and either convert it to mp3 or burn to wav at a later time after the 14 day period? Thanks for the heads up on this by the way!!!

Hahaha! I guess your problem is solved then huh? Quitchyer bitchin.

BTW, that wasn't addressed at you (whatever your name is who got all bitchy) per se, but at the folks who have been asking questions for things that have been asked over and over again and have solutions. I gave you your solution, so whatever dude, take it or leave it. You're welcome, I guess.

Anyway, the downside to all of this is that you have to use a credit card to get an account from the beginning. So you will have to do all of your downloading in that first 14 days or presumably create a new account with a new credit card after the 14 days are up to continue downloading.

However, yes once you have ripped to wav or mp3 all playback restrictions are removed.

A few other people posited running multiple instances of Winamp to speed things up. I've not tried this but I don't think it will work because all of those audio streams will be playing at once causing conflict in the recording (like recording everyone shouting in a room). I guess this depends on how it is routed in Windows though, so I could be wrong. Anyone try it?

I've encountered a problem that I haven't seen mentioned yet. I load files into the Winamp playlist, and Output Stacker converts the first track to WAV no sweat, but then Winamp closes on me.
Winamp handled playlists normally before I installed the plugin. It's going to be a major pain in my rear end if I have to go through the whole routine for each individual file. Any ideas about what's going on?

Excellent! stick to Napster!

Its pretty obvious.

Been doing this with goldwave recording the stereo mix for some time :/

iTunes fanatic: iTMS uses DRM also. You're renting AACs from apple, even if there isn't a monthly fee.

The only kinda annoying thing is that ALOT of the songs on napster seem to be buy only. I may be wrong, but I don't think these fall under the napster to go subscription deal. Am I wrong on this?

Yawn! This is nothing new, been doing it for years. Try using Total Recorder (High Critera). It has an option to capture the audio as fast as it is received, rather than having to wait in real time for a song. Used it on the Rhapsody service many times and would capture (and encode) a 5min song in 45sec, assuming you've got a good pipe. Only wish the music wasn't so overly compressed at Rhapsody, it sounded terrible with lots of compression artifacts and compressed dynamic range. Have phun! :)

HAW! Great Work!

This wouldn't work for me... need a credit card, dang.

I just wanted to attest to the fact that LameDudes approach to encoding directly to MP3s works (with ID3 tags)! The one caveat is that I coudnt get it working on VBR and instead had to jack up the CBR.

LameDudes directions should be suffecient for any technodork, in case your wondering where to get the lame-out.dll it can be found with this winamp plugin: http://winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=143606

Now all we need is a way to encode the files to mp3 without having to listen to the whole song (WITHOUT PAYING ADDITONAL MONEY FOR SOME CRAP SOFTWARE)

How do I get these tracks to play in winamp?

Hey,

I downloaded and set up Winamp the way it says. Winamp just goes through the list of files and adds [opening] to the front of the file name in the playlist window, but it doesn't play the song, and the file that appears in the output folder is only like 38 bytes long and doesn't work. Any thoughts?

Is it just me or did the Output Slacker plug in just disappear from Winamp's site? When I went to download it, the plugin page was there, but the file wouldn't download. Now, the page is gone from Winamp and it's not available via search.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Eep! Me too... :(

Yeah The plugin Disappeared.

Anyone have a zip they can send me?

Anyone have a zip to share?

Someone torrent teh zip!

Winamp has removed the output stacker plugin from thier site, likely due to the publicity. I have searched the plugin mirror sites, but no joy. Any hints?

wow lol that is funny. i'm glad i jump on to this right when i read about it. i'm downloading ilke a gazzilion songs right now.
i download the plug in from winamp.com lol that is funny they got scared.

k does anyone know if you can still play/convert the files after the 14 days trial expired? i know you can't download any more. but will the songs expire or won't play?

thanks alot for this. stick it to them.

After the trial has expired, so will your use of the downloaded songs from Napster. The songs actually have an expiration date. I'm currently on a 30 day free trial in which the songs I have downloaded will "expire" a few days after the trial service ends.

I've updated the post with a copy of the Output Stacker plug-in hosted here. Enjoy :)

Ok, here's where I'm at:

* downloaded Napster, signed up for 14 free trial
* downloaded Winamp 5.02
* downloaded Output Stacker, and configured as instructed (double checked the order of out_ds.dll and out_disk.dll, per previous posts)
* downloaded Windows Media Player 10
* wma's from Napster won't play in Winamp...so...
* dowloaded and configured out_lame, replacing out_lame.dll for out_disk.dll
* still no-go

I'm able to add the wma's to the playlist, but when I try to play, it just cycles through each one about a second each. Nothing is played. Nothing is created.

I've checked all my configurations, output directories, settings, etc. For the life of me, I can't get these files to play/convert in Winamp. They *play* fine in WMP10.

Any help would be appreciated. I've read through all the posts in this comments section, and can't find anything that fixes the problem.

I've made sure I'm using a sufficiently old version of Winamp (5.02), and a sufficiently new version of WMP (10). I'm using Windows XP, if that helps.

I have Winamp version 5.0.8d, and the whole Output Stacker thing worked for me. The WMAs also have played on Winamps 5.0.5 and 5.0.8 for me, and this was before I tried to convert the files to WAV.

I tried the out_lame 1.6.3 plug-in because I wanted my music in mp3 format, but everytime I tried to play a WMA with the plug-in on, Winamp would crash and close on me. I think I read about someone else having this same type of problem on a different forum. Anyone have any troubleshooting suggestions?

I'm in the process of converting the WMAs to WAV. This is going to take a LONG time. My converted WAV files are also huge, like between 30-50 megs. Is this right??

The files being rewritten to my hard drives are huge. It starts out as a 5.14 mb file and comes back as a 54 mb file. Is this correct?

Yeah, Then just put them into Itunes and it'll convert over.

So in this feeding frenzy to download music has any even listened to the .wma's from Napster - they're horrible! I can already hear artifact's - annoying treble - sounds like tinkling broken glass. I can only imagine how bad this will sound converted up to .wav and then down to .mp3. Ouch.

I'm not sure why no one else has mentioned this, but unless something wrong happened that I didn't realize, you can output at least two (and probably many more) files to .wav at the same time by using the multiple instances option in Winamp and reconfiguring the output stacker in the new instances. Set up playlists in all of them and it seems to output them just fine. Just turn down your speakers... or turn them up for some interesting mashups :)

30 to 50 MB per track (assuming WAV uses no compression at all) sounds about right.

A CD can contain about 640 MB of data or 20 songs. 640 MB / 20 = 32 MB per song. Longer songs take more space, of course.

Man, I don't know why I never thought of multiple instances of winamp. That is awesome.

As of this morning, at least, WINAMP.COM has removed "output stacker" from their listings. All links that can be search out redirect to www.winamp.com.

Apparently, they weren't happy about the plug-in's affect on Napster.

Looks like Napster felt the need to post a note about this on their site, basically stating that this technique is nothing new, that it is laborious and that other music services face the same problems:

"A note from Napster's CTO"
http://www.napster.com/winamp_memo.html

"It has come to our attention that there are a number of inaccurate statements posted by various sources on the Internet regarding the security of Napster and Napster To Go. As Napster's CTO, I would like to officially state that neither Napster To Go, Napster, nor Windows Media DRM have been hacked. In the interest of providing the most accurate information to consumers, the following is some background on the subject.

There is a program that allows a user to record the playback of tracks directly from the computer's sound card. This process can be likened to the way people used to record songs from the radio onto cassette tapes, but instead of capturing the music on a tape, the file is converted into a new, unprotected digital format. This program does not break the encryption of the files, which can only be recorded one at a time making the process quite laborious. It would take 10 hours to convert 10 hours of music in this manner. It is important to note that this program is not specific to Napster; files from all legal subscription and pay-per-download services can be copied in this way.

We hope that the information provided above clarifies the matter and puts questions regarding the security of Napster and Napster To Go to rest. Napster's mission is to provide consumers with a legal environment in which they can experience and discover the world's largest collection of digital music. We believe that artists should be compensated for their work and intellectual property rights should be respected. While we acknowledge there are always going to be those who do not share our belief, we remain committed to providing the most enjoyable and flexible digital music experience for those who do."

wow, thanks alot. What's even better? my school gives every one associated with the university a subscription to napster. so i can do this way more than 14 days. i didn't like the fact that my tuition was going to a music service that i ddin't like, and wouldn't normally use anyway.

after finding this out, i figured, hey, i'm "paying" for this service, i may as well take advantate of it.

and to all those people asking question, don't you know at least 1 (ONE) computer tech kid you could ask to help? i'm sure they are all around, and would be more than willing to help out...

kordik up and gone done it, you officially have blown everyone out of the water with regards to numbers of comments. Guess that'll happen when you get digged, and then boinged, and then gizmodoed, and then cnned.

Funny how some articles refer to multiple blogs, but every blog i've seen refers to this one, except one, which refers to the warlock post you mentioned.

Anyway, to people concerned about size:
wav files are raw, unencoded data. This means they are huge. So either burn them to a cd as audio tracks (yes, you can do this, there used to be a time when you had to convert to wav to burn to cd, but newer burners have the option of decoding mp3s on the fly) or encode them as mp3's if you value your hard drive space. You will lose a little quality encoding as mp3's, though.

As for the time, yes, it takes a long time. It is real time, and that is one reason napster doesn't care. time consuming.

After reading alot of the comments and some of the news articles about this relatively basic and old work around I decided to shed some light on how to make it a lot fucking quicker to copy your songs from wma to mp3.
1) Don't use the out_disk.dll that just makes space wasting wav files. (I mean come on the files are already compressed so its not like they are gonna be top notch quality to begin with) Use either the lame or mp3 output either works fine.
2) USE MULITPLE INSTANCES!!! (I have tried it with up to 5 different instances of Winamp running and this vastly decreases the amount of time necessary for the songs to be processed.
3) Use either Mp3 Tag Tools or Mp3 Tag Studio to complete your tag information
Then poof magically you have as many songs you can download and process in 14 days.
P.S.- The ethics of this is really in a grey area if anyone can relate how artists are compensated throught this all you can eat style downloading system from Napster then maybe that would clear some things up. But for now FUCK THE RIAA!!!

the process was working fine yesterday, then I tried it today and when I play the downloaded tracks in winamp I get a message that it is trying to Acquire License and then nothing happens? any ideas?

Anyone think Shawn Fanning is the brains behind this hack? Interesting to see what this wrinkle will do to DRM sites now..

Thanks for the help. If you guys want to download songs, try http://allofmp3.com

it is faster than this process, and you can get the files that are buy only on napster.

You have to pre pay with a credit card, but it is only 2 cents per mega byte. You can get a song for about six cents, and a CD is betweer 70 cents and one dollar.

1. Napster isn't the only, or even the first, company with unlimited subscription downloads. Musicnet@aol has been unlimited subscription downloads for over 2 years now. But they are encrypted RM's. Virgin Digital and FYE's download zone have been selling unlimited subscription downloads with portable-device-support since before christmas as well.

2. Napster made a decision to leave this hole open, with the full knowledge of the music labels. MS offers methods for preventing this kind of hack quite effectively, but because it requires hardware support in the audio card, as well as XP/ME, they went with the less restrictive methods.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmrm10/htm/understandingsecureaudiopathbyprotectingdigitalmed.asp

When I try to open more than one winamp program, it only loads the one I already have up. I can't get more than one program to play. Can someone please help me?

T-Mart - you need to set "Allow multiple instances" in Winamp. Go to Options -> Preferences -> General Preferences and look for the checkbox.

I was planning to broadcast my downloaded MP3s over my Shoutcast stream, and then save them using Station Ripper (I got a year sub. to napster to go for the free iRiver h10, so I have plenty of time, and haven't gotten around to this, yet). Has anyone already tried it? (I have had a shoutcast stream for a couple of years, so setting that up won't be an issue) This workaround, with the LAME out seems like it might be a whole lot easier...both ways, of course require you listen to the whole song, but you could run multiple instances of the LAME setup simulateously, and I don't think it would be easy to broacast multiple streams.

Not sure if this is going to help or hurt, BUTTTT

I opened up LAME 3.96.1 and kept it open while running Winamp, it "Appears" that I am making the WAV file and compressed file at the same time. Does this make sense?

One file is at 128kbs and protected, the other at the rate of 160 which I set in the config, and not protected. Should the un-protected one be the one to keep?

Can I download ANY file or am I limited to the ones that say "Download" and will I be charged for the ones labeled $0.99?

As far as ethics go in the sense of paying the artists, I *beleive* that napster has to pay the artist based on number of tracks downloaded. In that case, the artist isn't being ripped off, napster is. But napster doesn't seem to really care.

I'm not sure that's how it works, but i can't imagine it working differently...i mean, if you sign up for the free trial you can get a bunch of music free, if the artist weren't paid for that why would napster not be in trouble?

To CJ: No, my name isn't Shawn Fanning. Check my blog if you want more info. http://www.warl0k.com/blog

I am amazed at how well the blogosphere publicized this hack. 4 weeks from my original post on cdfreaks about it, to an actual factual news article.

I guess this paves the way for my paper on DRM and Music (And you!) at DefCon. See you all there!

Live in a country that Napster wont work in (Norway). Do you know of another service that allows unlimited protected format downloads?

For anyone still having problems with Winamp only playing about a second of each track, my friend Sandra finally figured out a solution (it worked for 2 of us, anyway, so we're batting 1000):

1) Uninstall Windows Media Player (it's in the windows components section of add/removed programs - simply un-tick Windows Media Player, then click OK)

2) Uninstall Winamp - delete the entire directory.

3) Re-install Windows Media Player 10

4) Re-install Winamp (we both re-installed the latest version, and both times it's worked fine.)

5) Re-install and configure the plugins.

That's it! Seems that both times this didn't work, it was because we didn't have WMP 10 installed, then installed it AFTER installing Winamp. Even uninstalling then re-installing Winamp didn't help. Had to uninstall WMP 10 FIRST.

I'm just glad Windows is so freakin' user friendly ;-)

Does anybody use 5.08d?

Patrick,

The tracks labeled $.99 work in reverse - they're promotional singles the record companies actually WANT you to sample so they'll credit your account back that amount when you download 'em. You can't MAKE extra money by downloading them, but if you collect more than 15 a month you can essentially get your subscription for FREE!

Enjoy...

Tried Uninstalling/Reinstalling Media Player 10 and Winamp. Still doesn't play files. I have auto windows XP updates, so I fear they may have patched the loophole.

Unintalling and reinstalling doesn't work for me. Still can't play files. I think autoupdate for XP may have something to do with it. Any other ideas?

Like John, above, I'm in a country that doesn't "do" Napster. It does, however, offer me a login. Is there a way around this?

As for Windows Update...I also have auto updates, PLUS I did a manual check to see if I was up to date (Windows Update reported nothing to install), so I know I'm as current as you can get (as of about 11:00pm PST last night), and mine is working fine.

And in answer to Kelly, yes, I'm using 5.08d (and it's working fine.)

Well, I tried running StationRipper to record my ShoutCast stream..no dice...apparently the newer version of winamp(5.08)that is required to play the Napster DRM files recognizes that they are protected and it won't broadcast those streams.
Meanwhile, I'm unable to get the damn lame_out to work properly...It does record the files, but it does so REALLY slowly. Any ideas? It's not b/c my system is overtaxed...

Im having a problem where when i go to click to start the song playing, in the playlist box it gets a [Opening] infront of the song and in the output file it makes a small (44 byte) wav with the title of the song Please help!

OK, things are working fine for me but, I have a question. How could I do a simple conversion from these WAV files into MP3 format without burning the WAV's to CD first? I want to keep some as WAV's but, also would like to convert a few to 320bps MP3. What is the easiest ( and free ) way to accomplish this?

Anybody got a recommendation for LAME CBR re-encoding bitrate? I'm tempted to just use 320kbps to be sure I'm losing as little audio quality as possible during transcoding, but I'm thinking that's probably overkill considering the source files are only 192kbps...

tigerpants-
Forget about the 320kbps MP3s. You will be misrepresenting the quality of the files and wasting major space. These WMAs are 96-128kbps which translates to about 160kbps MP3s.

this is how u can do it str8 to mp3.

Download Lame ACM
Install it

In Output Stacker configure page
hit confige on out_disk.dll

Check convert to format box
click on the ... botton.

In format, there should be Lame MP3 if not MPEG Layer-3
Atrribute, whatever bitrate you want.

Output file mode leave on Auto.

You're ready to go.

*Testing purpose only

Turn off the box in Advanced Title Formatting/Titles/Preferences

You will get cleaner file names.

So did this guy get paid by napster to get people to sign up for it by making it seem like this great deal? Oooooo 14 days!!! Yeah if no one noticed they want your credit card number and everything for the trial. Fuck this guy and fuck napster!!

Truth, you can cancel the subscription before the fourteen day trial is over, and they won't charge you.

This thing is not bit2bit accurate, but do we care?

Having fun with this EXCEPT for:

When I do the "Lame" suggestion of replacing the "out_disk.dll" with the "out_lame.dll" in "Dietmar's Output Stacker [out_stacker.dll]", it does it's job (Making MP3s straight from the .wma files), but just does it EXTREMELY SLOWLY. I put about 25 songs in the playlist before I went to bed thinking they'd all be done when I got up - but NO... Still was working, and had about 5 songs left...

Now get this.. when I use the "Lame MP3 Writer Plugin [out_Lame.dll]", They convert at REAL TIME, no problemo... - BUT - with no sound .. (read on..).

Get this... - I was beginning to accept NO SOUND monitoring when using the "Lame MP3 Writer" directly to make MP3's, BUT AS I WAS WRITING THIS VERY COMMENT HERE, THE SOUND MONITORING JUST MAGICALLY DECIDED TO START..

??? Hmmmm....

i downloaded "output stacker" from here, but there is no "out_disk.dll". only "out_ds.dll, out_wave.dll, and out_stacker.dll" whassup?

Paul,

I have the same situation. No "out_disk.dll". Anybody have an idea why? Was it pulled?

ok well i got everything down i got Winamp to convert the files but now when i try to burn them NERO accepts them but when it starts to burn it doesnt burn at all.. cd doesnt work.. so after i play the napster files thru winamp and they are converted but are still WMA files and i try to burn them it goes appie on me?? anyone share their fine knowledge on this problem?

Capt. Warlock, Marv

Thank you.

Does anyone know a way to stop the file names from getting junked up with [Opening] at the beginning and _wma at the end?

I saw this post but don't know where these settings are....

Turn off the box in Advanced Title Formatting/Titles/Preferences

You will get cleaner file names.

Thanks!

any way to get past the billing information stage?

"Turn off the box in Advanced Title Formatting/Titles/Preferences"

did this and still creating those long titles.........any ideas? please help

I think, while Napster exists - before it declares bankruptcy - it is a fantastic opportunity to download permanent copies of songs for an extremely small price. 

In the privacy of our homes, we can record all the songs we can play into WAV or direct to MP3s for permanent use in our collections.  All it takes are free utilities such as Winamp, Output Stacker, and others.  These are essentially versions of StreamRipper - an open source program that records internet radio station streams.

Interestingly, you can run as many copies of WinAmp on your PC as your CPU will support.  One person, for example, was able to run 32 simultaneous copies of WinAmp on his Athlon PC.  Each copy of WinAmp you run on your computer can download Napster files in parallel with others.  Thus, on Napster, you can record up to 10,752 hours of music just within the free 14 day period.  This is equivalent to about 161,280 songs (assuming 4 minutes a song).  This translates to 11,520 songs a day that you can record on your computer.

What this means is that on a single computer, all you need is 87 days to download all 1,000,000 songs in Napster’s collection and convert them to all to permanent DRM-less unprotected MP3s usable in any MP3 player including iPods!!!!!  Thus you only need to get a 3 month subscription to Napster in order to download every single song in their collection using a single PC!!!! 

DO THE MATH!!!! 

With Napster streamripping, you can get 1,000,000 songs permanently in your collection for only $45.00 - to use any way you want - FOREVER.  After 3 months, you can stop your Napster subscription because you now have EVERY SONG in Napster’s collection.  WOW!!!!!!!!!  You no longer need a Peer-to-Peer network.  You no longer need Gnutella.  You no longer need Limewire. 

DO THE MATH:

Napster = 1,000,000 songs for $45 Permanently in your collection !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s a fire sale.  It’s a candy store for free!!!!!  It’s the bargain of a century!!!!!!!

Wow!!!!  This makes it very tempting to subscribe a very short time on Napster!!!!!

Of course, the primary ones who hurt are the artists and record companies. 

At least with Internet Radio Stations, record companies and artists are paid for each song that is downloaded and streamripped.

Napster does the same as an Internet Radio Station but without the per-song fee paid by Internet Radio Stations.

When you streamrip Napster, you are paying 0.0045 cents per song when you rip using 32 simultaneous streams.  Assuming 20 songs per album, this is equivalent to paying 0.09 cents per album!!!!!!!  How inexpensive can you get?!!!!!!

RECORD COMPANIES:  ARE YOU READING THIS?!!!!!!!

At 0.09 CENTS PER ALBUM, I doubt record companies, not to mention artists, will make much from Napster.  For a record company, this is equivalent to grossing $900 on a platinum album!!!!!!.

RECORD COMPANIES AND ARTISTS:  ARE YOU READING THIS?!!!!!!!

With iTunes, you have to pay for the song or album first before you can convert it to MP3 for your own use.  Thus you get your 99-cents per track, and more per album.

With Napster, you pay 0.0045 cents per track,

Anyone figure out the problem with crashing WinAmp? It usually takes me between 5-10 attempts to get each instance of winamp working. While this a small price to pay it is a hassle.

Once winamp is going everything works fine.

Thanks.

It would be less than 900 dollars for a platinum album.

Napster to go is 15 dollars a month, but the Napster version needed to do what we are is only 10 dollars per month, so that means it would be about 600 dollars for a platinum album.

anyone figure out about the ADVANCED TITLEING THAT IS MAKING THE MUSIC TITLE REALLY LONG WITH NUMBERS AND ALBUM AND ALL THAT???????????

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE ANSWER

i downloaded "output stacker" from here, but there is no "out_disk.dll". only "out_ds.dll, out_wave.dll, and out_stacker.dll" whassup?

Suggestions for any issues here
1. Read though the threads
2. Follow the new development

I set it all up and I try to play the file but it brings up an error window saying I need to use the DirectSound output plugin to play Windows Media Content. I saw that when I tried to play it, it would send a packet but by disabling the connection it simply failed to play the song when I tried.
the out_ds.dll and the out_disk.dll are in the proper order as I read above and I am using winamp v5.08e

Any suggestions?

May be I'm stupid but I really don't know how to do this. I downloaded Napster and set up everything. But what do I do now? Do I buy the song? or burn it? How do i save it as WAV??? Please help. I really really appreciate it.

I'm having the same DirectSound problem described above by Cheese. Help!

Help. I have downloaded Winamp Lite and can find no output stacker plug-in on the Winamp site. I looked in plug-ins, output, and I find nothing for Dietmar's output stacker.

Same problem as Sorkinfan and Cheese - have plug-ins in the right order in stacker, but get the error to select directsound. Should the Stacker be selected in the Output plu-ins window?

Sorkinfan/Cheese/Nosbor..Had the same problem. Found the solution to be Winamp Version 5.03. 5.03 can be found at: http://www.pcw.co.uk/downloads/1144784

Solution was found at http://www.tech-recipes.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=832&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

Now works as described.

I got an error msg when attempting to play a downloaded Napster song with Winamp. When I follow the instructions on setting up the Out-put stacker and import tracks into Winamp and hit "play", I get the following msg... "Please select DirectSound output plugin to play Windows Media Content" When I do this, Winamp plays the track, but does NOT convert... please assist.

quick question. i've got it to work and all, and now when i try to play a protected wma file in winamp, it's saying "opening failed" in winamp. can ya help?

Are all you people telling me you don't feel wrong at all taking all this music? It is illegal. You can try to talk your way around it, but you know it isn't right. Have you no respect for the artists that you say you like? Sure, the record companies make a fortune when you buy CD's in stores, but that carries over to all areas of corporate America. Most artists you listen to aren't actually that wealthy—they just don't get a big cut of the money made on albums.
I just can't believe so many people have no moral objection with this.

my winamp was working fine up untill today what it is doing now is when i select a song to play that i dl from napster it plays the song(1 song a second) and goes through a 15 track album in 15 seconds without even playing them no sound evven comes out of my speaker does this happen to anyone else? did winamp update?

I have tried two different versions of the 5.x Winamp, and both times I've run into the same problem. When I run the Output Stacker executable, it doesn't put the out_ds.dll or the out_disk.dll files anywhere on my computer.

Is there a way around this, do I even need to worry about it with the newer versions? Any help would be appreciated.

I'm having the same problem that "shit" has with WinAmp not playing the files (only for 1 second without audio). I too am wondering if WinAmp did an update. I am running WinAmp ver. 5.03 and it work yesterday, but this morning... nothing. Any clues anybody?

As for "dj slim"'s comment: Assuming only that you are a DJ, I will go out on a limb and make this comment... You have only paid for your music once by purchasing a CD or whatever, but you are making money as a DJ, are you paying money back to the artists who made that music? - At least I am not selling this crap.

I've tried winamp 5.03 and it still isn't working

http://marv.kordix.com/archives/000435.html

ok, i've gone thorugh this several times but can't find an answer that works.

i have windows media 10 and winamp 503 but when i try to play the song it just scrolls through the song list really fast. i've seen other people with this problem. help!!!

i'd be eternally greatful if someone could help me through this.

i still haven't been able to find something to work. will removing drm help any, but i wouldn't even know how to do that. anyone with any suggestions?

Seems that the loophole has been closed. Check out this link.

http://www.bloggidity.com/web/2005/02/23/winamp_08e_released_476.htm

I heard that http://allofmp3.com is probably going to be shut down on March 7th, so you want to spend you account soon.

i can get this to work for one song. after that it shuffles through again and won't record anymore. the only way to get it to work again is to uninstall wmp 10 and winamp and then reinstall it. Anyone have any solutions? I'm so close to having this worked out.

thanks

How would the WinAMP update change the loophole for the older versions?
As in, shouldn't this still work if you don't have 5.08e?

Msg for "Taboo", as Marv had mentioned before, AOL/Winamp had to cancel and renew their DRM certificate with Microsoft to use the codecs with MS Media Player. This basically means that your current Winamp player speaks French, but MS Media Player will only recognize English. Make any sense?

I get that part well enough, but what I don't get is how it affects the older versions. The way I understand this (which is obviously wrong) is that the future versions of WinAMP are 'fixed'. Maybe it is something I don't know about the DRM Cert?

can someone help me signup a napster account? i cant sign. please email me @ the_maximum_raid@yahoo.com with the username and password. thank you

TO MAX...........LMAO create your OWN account...you need a credit card and if you dont have one then O WELL Get music somewhere else! LOL at your post

re: Winamp retro-active fixes for older versions -

Here's how I believe it works (I spent hours trying to understand this and I may be wrong still) - if you have Winamp version 5.08d or earlier, and don't have automatic updates turned on for windows, and you haven't updated WMP (Windows Media Player) with new codec's in the past month or so, you should still be able to convert to your heart's desire, using the original methods.

does anyone know how to uninstall wmp 10? i've tried add/remove and for some reason it's not working for me. help please. thanks.

"As for "dj slim"'s comment: Assuming only that you are a DJ, I will go out on a limb and make this comment... You have only paid for your music once by purchasing a CD or whatever, but you are making money as a DJ, are you paying money back to the artists who made that music? - At least I am not selling this crap."

1) I'm not a DJ
2) That's a weak excuse to steal music.
3) If anything, a DJ playing songs increases the demand curve for said songs. Can you say free marketing?

I need help importing songs to virtua, can anyone write out how, i also cant find songs in Napster

Marv, after following your instructions, i still get error: "Please select DirectSound output plugin to play Windows Media Content" and it doesn't play, only if i change plug-in to DirectSound output it plays the songs, but doesn't convert or copy to the directory.
Please help.
Thanks

So...without reading through all the comments from the past month...does this thing, with Napster a) still work and b) is there a new procedure in going about doing it?

Cheers, Jacob.

Hey Marv,

I happily completed all the steps you instructed. I put my Napster files into winamp and clicked to play. I got a popup that says "select directsound output plug in to play windows media content" so i went back under visualization, selected the plug in, was able to play the file, but it still says it was in wma format after it played. I then proceeded to try to burn the song just from winamp and it wont let me, prolly because its still in the wma format. Am I doing something wrong? I figured I had gotten something right since I was able to play the tracks in winamp. help!

ps
youre a freakin genius man for figuring this out!

OK my update: i read what everyone was saying and uninstalled winamp and wmp and reinstalled winamp 5.02. i installed the plug-ins as directed. now my question is: if i DL the newest version of wmp 10, will it work? or did the loop hole affect wmp? please someone just let me know! i appriciate it. thanks a lot!

Winamp is dead for now.

I'd like to ask a couple of things plus add a few.

I work in the record industry as marketing and promotions. We do promotions for all of the major labels and a whole lot of indys. I write technology for marketing and tracking the end user so i'm not a computer retard either. So while everyone is screaming about ethics consider this:

1) I would gladly pay the $10 or even $15 per month for Napster IF i could play it on any device or burn cds. My whole frustration is i can't even listin to the music on my MAC which is where i have the dope sound system.

2) If the recording industry wouldn't gouge the consumer for a record that only has a 2-3 good tracks on it to begin with, NONE of you would be here trying to rip it. The fact is producing an artist has gotten signifcatly cheeper, yet the prices keep rising.

3) the artists get screwed no matter what so stop worrying about them. out of the $18.99 you're not paying for a CD, the best artist sees is less the $1 of that. 50% goes to the retailer, 25% to the distributor, the rest to the label. there is a whole lot more complexity but this is abreviated. Napster pays a percentage of all revene to ASCAP and BMI (they collect royalties then distruibute to the labels) this is even more convoluted.

4) the difference between what you download off iTunes and Napster sucks. 128k in joint stero. i have roughly 3000 cds (i own) which i have taken the time to digitize at 192k, the difference is massive. So if you are concerned about quality buy albums from the used store for 3-5 bucks.

5) HOW IN THE HELL DOES THIS WORK? I've read this entire long ass message board for 3 hours trying every possible way and no luck. i'm using wmp10, winamp 5.08d, stacker configuration (with out_ds then out_disk also fliped too) It just cycles through the tracks playing nothing and writing nothing.

ok looks like napster figured out all of their loose ends because Virtuosa doesn't work either.

so, there's no way of burning our napster songs anymore? dang it!
if anyone can find out how to do it, please let me know! thanks!

I did all the thing you want me to do ~~
But Winamp will say use your Direct....plugin to play the music , I cannot change to WAV

hey I downloaded winamp 5.08 and got stuck on step 3. I got screwed by napster and would like some help. could it be that output stacker isnt doing anything. Please write soon. btw I have msn messenger and would love some help. thanks

I did everything you said to, but i dont know how to load the napster songs to Winamp. Can you please e-mail me back to tell me how to do this.

damn... some of u people are so stupid and so lazy

Hello.

I have a problem with naptser registration in 14 day free trial. I am at São Paulo, Brazil, and the server does not permit registration in my country, with this message "Napster is not currently availabre in your country". How can I solve this problem? Thanks

I'VE GOT A QUESTION FOR MERV:
purely for educational purposes, i was wondering if you could just say to hell with using the aformentioned methods and run the downloaded napster music files through an audio converter. more specifically, "audio converter all in one". this is not a plug by the way, but a sincere question. you see, i use this program for music production and sampling ... when i create beats with my keyboard i import them into my computer and convert the file to mp3 so i can send it to my friend who needs files in mp3 format for his music program. after reading this forum i was left remembering how, when i plug my original wav file into the converter it spits out a whole new mp3 file leaving the original uneffected. it can also convert from and to wma, and ogg. so, if i stick in a wma napster file and convert it to wav or mp3, will the new file still have the DRM protection or will it be a whole new file unto it self.
i hope this question makes sense and appreciate your reply specifically if at all possible. some of the other people who read this forum kinnda seem like goons.

i guess, in short, i'm asking if "audio converter all in one" and the programs like it does the same thing as virtuoso?
and one more question ... is there any way for a file to report to the powers that be if it's being tampered with, or have they only managed to make it difficult to copy them?
thankyou again for any reply

Come on... lets not be ignorant. This is in clear violation of the Terms and Conditions posted on Napsters site.

It's one thing to say "Here's a way to steal music without getting caught"

That is devious and anarchic, which is fine. :)

It's another thing to say that this is legal when it clearly isn't. That would be ignorance, and I'm sure none of you are ignorant. ;)

the iinfo on the onversion process is fantastic...worked like a charm and I am not a big time geek. Thanks!!!! One question - are we sure that Napster cannot find out that you've done this? They "talk" with the tracks you have downloaded in regards to whether or not you are still paying the subscription, is it possible that they could find out that you've run the tracks through this conversion process or is this a stupid question?

Is this definitively DEAD at this point? Are there still ways to do the conversion with other software programs? Any help would be appreciated!

I am having trouble converting the songs on winamp
I followed the directions and can get the songs on the winamp playlist but when I hit play it won't play it just says opening file and scans each very quickly. Thanks for any help you can give.

I can't get the output stacker to work. Is there any other way I can still convert the WMA files?

thanks.

ok for some reason i am having trouble i have all teh plugins and did what teh intstructions said .. i somehow got the musci to start playing and can select ne track i want ,however before i got teh music to play and error would appear telling me to go back to teh outputs and cahnge it back to the origianl one instead of the plugin.... so the problem is the music wont play on the plugin one but it will on the regular one but the regular one doesnt have hte catalog or conversion.. someone plz help me and send me a prayer thru email onhow to do this

The winamp conversion process has been dead for several weeks. There was a newer process using a program called Virtuoso but that is dead now for the last several days. No other news except to try tunebite.

Tunebite only works on songs you've actually purchased, correct?

Okay. I purchased "Tunebite", but unfortunately it was a waste of time. The files I turned into MP3's are very low quality once they are burned onto CD. So I wasted $18 on Tunebite and $10 to continue my Napster account. The worst part was I wasted hundreds of hours of time turning these songs into MP3. Oh well, at least I didn't delete my old MP3's to make room for all the new ones that were all perfect Napster quality. Wait I did do that. I am an idiot. LOL!!1

I go under the Napster file but there is no folder holding my music to transfer to anything, what the hell do I do???

I go under the Napster file but there is no folder holding my music to transfer to anything, what the hell do I do???

has anyone tryed the program audacity, its a cool free prog for editing music. i tryed it with the free napster trial, you can play the napster wma's in napster itself or wmp then record it into audacity, same idea as the winamp "hack" but it will only record in mono. just thought i would throw that one out there, try to toy with it and see what you can come up with. it would prob work with other prog like itunes. later

i have followed the instructions to a T but i have not been able to find the wav files afteri play them...could i not have my plugin installed right or the settings right? when i play the files nothing happens...any help would be greaty appreciated

Will try anything. Cost of cds was way to high. Since online downloads prices keep coming down. This shows how much they ripped us all of.

I downloaded everything I need (LAME file, Winamp, Napster, etc)...did all the configuring...the files will play in the player, but I don't get how they get "copied" into the Output Directory that I assign them to go to. I play a file, then I open up the folder I assigned the Output Directory to....and there's nothing...and I still can't burn it to cd or anything.

Am I supposed to do something after playing the songs to get it to switch to a wav file?

hi
i have done all plug-ins and set the directory and out put file! Ok then i open wma's that i have downloaded them from napster.
then when i press play button , the song doesn't converted to wave ?? although when i open mp3 file in winamp it converted to wave !!
please help me
bye

Does this even work anymore?

Hello.
I Have a super problem!!
with naptser registration. I am at Lima, Peru, and the server does not permit registration in my country, with this message "Napster is not currently availabre in your country". How can I solve this problem? Thanks!!!

Does this even work anymore?

I don't get the part where you change the settings to wav. I also don't know if you have to listen to the whole song and some other parts. If someone could please tell me in complete detail how to burn the music.

Tahnk You

Ok I need some help please!I have all my songs downloaded on Napster and I changed all the settings on Winamp like you said. I cant figure out how to find the .WMAs..Ive spent forever looking..can you please help me it would be very much appreciated.

I have a new question and problem now, when I go to burn a cd on winamp after I did all the steps you said to do, it says "decoder cant be used to burn cd"..what does that mean and what can i do to fix it?

get tunebite...it's cheap ($17) and works great

I have downloaded lame_enc.dll and audacity STILL WILL NOT allow me to export my file as an MP3 Any ideas what else to do?

I have downloaded lame_enc.dll and audacity STILL WILL NOT allow me to export my file as an MP3 Any ideas what else to do?

can anyone help?
I purchased Winamp, then tried to find OUTPUT STACKER then Dietmar's output staker so that i can burn cd's from napster.
Only I xan't find how to get them from winamp.
If anyone know how to get these stakers, can they email me and talk me through it please.
Thanks in advance
Ra

Ur site is really good. I wish to know abt opening Winamp files using C/C++, preference to C.

I've learned about cool software which unprotects purchased Napster music successfully.. so u may enjoy your music everywhere :)
http://www.soundtaxi.info

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