Dodging DRM-Induced Obsolescence: Doing The D/A-plus-A/D Dance
When I migrated from my Dell Inspiron 700m to my MacBook, I had to re-download all of my DRM-inclusive Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription content. In the process of doing so, I was disappointed to discover that the nearly 75 minute-long mix of John Digweed’s Transitions Vol. 1 was no longer available through the service. This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered disappearing content, which occurs at the whim of the content rights-holder i.e. the record label. When Bt’s R&R vanished a while back, for example, I went ahead and bought a copy on CD (can you tell I listen to a lot of techno?).
Unfortunately, purchase wasn’t quite as easy (or economical) an option this time around. The mix track is Digweed’s blend of the 15 standalone tracks on the Transitions Vol. 1 CD…and is not available on CD. The only other place I’ve ever found it other than Yahoo Music, in fact, is on iTunes…where it’s not available for standalone sale and therefore effectively doubles the album price (to nearly $30 when all is said and done).
Although the mix track can no longer be downloaded from Yahoo Music Unlimited, its license rights curiously still seem to refresh whenever I dock my Sandisk Sansa Connect, to which I downloaded the track many months ago when it was still available. I’m still able to play the track and, in fact, if I get a license expiration notice because I haven’t USB-tethered the portable player to my laptop or Wi-Fi-connected it to Yahoo in a while, the next time I do so I subsequently regain usage rights. I can also copy the track file from the Sansa Connect to the MacBook via Windows Explorer, but that doesn’t get me anywhere. The file copy is still DRM-soaked, and since the track’s no longer available through Yahoo, I can’t secure access rights for it on the laptop.
On a hunch, I tried a different tack the other day. Audiophiles among you should brace yourselves at this point (although, since the source file is a 192 kbps WMA, I may have already lost the sonic lunatic fringe). The Sansa Connect has a fairly low and (as it turns out) line-like output level coming from the headphone jack. After disabling all audio processing (i.e. equalization) in the portable player, I ran the headphone output into the MacBook’s analog audio line input. I exited out of Outlook, Firefox and any other programs and processes that might unduly distract Windows. Then I fired up Audacity and hit ‘record’, followed by ‘play’ on Sandisk’s portable device.
I’ve listened to the track quite a lot, so I was already familiar with where the ‘loud’ parts in it are. By adjusting the Sansa Connect output volume, I was able to maximize the recording’s signal-to-noise without also overdriving and therefore clipping the line input. After I’d done so, I re-started the track (and my recording of it) from the beginning, walked away for an hour and 15 minutes, and came back to find a DRM-free copy of the Transitions Vol. 1 continuous mix sitting on my hard drive.
Yes, the track went through a D/A conversion as it headed out the Sansa Connect’s headphone jack, followed by a redundant A/D reconversion as it entered the MacBook. And yes, those conversions probably weren’t particularly high quality, especially considering the Sansa Connect’s price point. But you know what? I’ve just listened to the DRM-free track in its entirety, and it sounds just fine…particularly considering that the alternatives are:
- iTunes extortion, or
- no track at all
To be clear, this was just an experiment. My original contracted usage rights to the track were subscription rental only, not permanent acquisition, so I’m going to do the ethical thing and delete the track as soon as I publish this post. But particularly in combination with digital rights management-circumventing software such as FairUse4WM and FreeMe2, it sure points out the ultimate fallacy of DRM as a means of media usage control, doesn’t it?
