I Want My Walkman Back
Jason Kuznicki on Jul 29th 2005
A long time ago, there was the Walkman.
The Walkman had its heyday when I was far too young to buy one of these miraculous devices. My parents informed me that it would surely cause deafness, and besides, it’s illegal to copy music.
But people copied music to their Walkmans anyway; neither lightning bolts nor the federal government ever struck down the wicked in this regard. And they did not become deaf, except for a few, who, for reasons quite unrelated, probably deserved it anyway.
Eventually I bought a Walkman, and it was better than I ever imagined. As loudly as I dared, I listened to all the godawful stuff I liked back then–Aerosmith, Bad Company, other bands I’m ashamed to name in public. I was in eighth grade, and I loved it.
Times change, however, and my current Walkmanesque device is actually a good deal less useful to me.
Now honestly, I don’t really want to break copyright laws. I know that elsewhere, several people whom I greatly respect have challenged whether copyright is a legitimate concept at all, but I am still inclined to think that it is. Accordingly, the number of mp3s that I have downloaded from the Internet is altogether small. I consider myself to own them on a trial basis only, and for the most part I have purchased the associated CDs whenever I could.
Since buying CDs remains my main source of new music, most of the collection saved on my computer consists of Windows-generated .wma files. These files obediently disable themselves whenever you try to do something naughty with them.
At times, they also disable themselves for no apparent reason. Some time ago, Scott bought me a portable music player–and, despite the promise of its advertising, never once has it been able to play my .wmas. Irony of ironies, the damn thing will play every single one of the few .mp3s that I once downloaded illegally. But it won’t play a any of the .wmas, all of which I acquired in accordance with copyright law.
This media player is one of the more important ways that I listen to music, and as a result, I now listen to far more “illegal” music than I do to “legal” music. And even though I dearly love the thought behind the gift, it’s easy to see how the player could be so much more than it currently is. It’s also easy to see how a nonexistent copyright system could often be better than bad copyright system.
I have tried all the recommended workarounds, to no avail. Even copying the files using Windows Media Player–the program that created the .wmas in the first place–does not solve the problem.
I don’t know what to do, but one thing’s for sure: I want my Walkman back.
Filed in The Bench, The Bistro
Two possible solutions come to mind:
1. Download the music you own. You have a copy already, and so i don’t think you do anything illegal when you get another.
2. Re-Burn your CD collection, making sure to do it in mp3’s (at a quality rate somehwere between 128-192kbs; 128kbs will make the music about 1meg per minute in size and is find for 95% of people). Turn off all DRM - you’re not sharing it, no one will hack your computer to steal it, so there’s no reason to cripple your files in any way.
You’re also probably better off getting something besides windows media player. My choice is iTunes, and though interfacing is probably less pleasant when not using an iPod with it, is still doable… another good choice (I think) is MusicMatch or even WinAmp.
Damnit, what’s wrong with Bad Company? They have some great songs. Granted they don’t hold a candle to a bands like The Velvet Underground or the Pixies, though.
Now, if you wanna talk about artists that are embarassing to admit to liking in public, try Tori Amos and Ani Difranco.
Oh, the shame…
The thing is, file sharing has not been shown to hurt music sales. In my experience, downloading a few songs by an artist generally makes me more willing to buy their albums, since I become more familiar with their music (I don’t listen to the radio). At the same time, I can sometimes find music that I really enjoy on the peer to peer networks that is simply not available anywhere else. So while I generally think that it is immoral simply because it is breaking the law, in my experience downloading music illegally has led me to buy more music, get more excited about music, and get music that I can’t buy.
PS yeah, you should be able to rip the files in as MP3 with no DRM — then they will be playable on all digital music players. A few albums actually try to keep you from ripping them as MP3 — but this is still pretty uncommon. And there are always workarounds.
Can you convert the wma’s to mp3’s? I use this:
http://www.poikosoft.com/
It’s frickin great.
“Can you convert the wma’s to mp3’s?
Yes, I think so; but if it’s like my experience converting mp3’s to AAC or vice versa, you’re better off re-ripping the CD; there can be loss of quality through the conversions, and I’m not sure how much faster converting is (my assumption is that it’s negligible.
there can be loss of quality through the conversions
This is probably the best reason not to convert between formats. But if Jason is having trouble just getting the files onto his player, converting them is most likely not an option anyway. Any DRM that would keep the file off of a device would also prevent conversions to DRM-less formats.
I’d re-rip them as MP3s, like others have suggested.
If you no longer have the CDs and can’t get conversion sofwater to work with them, you can rip them from the WMAs (I’m not recommeding this unless other options fail). Just run your computer’s line out to it’s line in and then rip from the line in (most rippers will do this and I KNOW MusicMatch will).
Dolphin, another option would be to make music CDs out of the wma’s. the files on a stanard music CD are (so far as understand) basically wholly uncompressed .wav files, and you would probably get less quality loss burning to a Cd and then ripping than from the direct conversion, for whatever reason.
Speaking of walkmans, by the way, have you checked out sony’s latest offering in the flash drive music player market? It’s pretty swanky. Sony had fumbled for a while with the digital music player thing, so it’s good to see them back on track.
I do have the CDs still, but I was just wondering whether there was a way I could plunk the wmas onto the portable player. Also I was complaining about our overly restrictive copyright regime…
1. Install Linux (optional)
2. Convert all your music to Ogg Vorbis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis)
3. Use a portable player that supports Vorbis
4. Enjoy your music and have some peace of mind.
Wikipedia also has a list of portable players that supports Vorbis.
I’ve been ripping to Ogg Vorbis rather than mp3 lately. I just wish more CD burning programs supported it.
Media Player will rip to mp3 now, i think it used to only go to wma, but the format never caught on so they’ve put it to the back burner and accepted mp3s superiority. I think it still rips to wma by default, you might have to tinker with the preferences.
If I remember correctly, vorbis has significantly better sound quality but it also is a much larger file. If you’re not worried about storage space at all you might as well just convert to raw wavs.
Thanks for the suggestions. It’s funny, I expected this to turn into a discussion of copyright restrictions; instead, it became a discussion of practical workarounds so we don’t have to bother with them.
I’ve now gone with Scof’s suggestion. For some reason the WMAs still won’t convert to MP3s, but that’s okay with me. I am now in the process of re-ripping every CD I own. It’s tedious, but in the end it means I can break free from Windows Media Player, which I have always detested.
(By the way, Vorbis sounds wonderful in theory, but I want to use the portable player I already own and also be able to listen to my files on any future devices I may have.)