Understanding and Protecting Your Digital Rights

Windows Media Player is designed to deal gracefully with licensed media files—that is, digital content whose use is governed by a licensing agreement with the content provider. The license associated with a file, which protects the provider against illegal distribution of the media item, specifies how you can use the file and for what period of time. The terms of the license are determined by the content vendor.

When you download a media item from the Internet, the content provider might provide you with a license. Alternatively, if you play an unlicensed file that requires a license, Windows Media Player tries to obtain the license. You might have to register or pay for the license at this time.

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If you want to avoid acquiring licensed media, choose Tools, Options. On the Media Player tab in the Options dialog box, clear Acquire Licenses Automatically.

In some cases, a license will allow you to play the media item for an indefinite period of time but only on the computer on which the item was obtained. In other cases, a license will expire after some period of time but allow the item to be copied or moved to other computers (but not necessarily to CDs). If the protected content originated on a CD (that is, if you copied protected content from a CD to your hard disk), you typically are permitted to copy the content onto another CD but not to other computers. Copying to SDMI-compliant portable devices is typically restricted by the same terms that apply to the use of the item on the computer where it was downloaded. (SDMI stands for Secure Digital Music Initiative, a forum that seeks to establish technology specifications for protecting the property rights of digital content providers. For more information, see http://www.sdmi.org.)

You can find out what the terms of an item’s license are by examining the item’s properties dialog box. Locate the file in Windows Explorer (usually you’ll find it in My Music), right-click it, choose Properties from the shortcut menu, and click the License tab. Figure 16-6 shows the License tab for a downloaded music file. Alternatively, if the file is included in your Windows Media Player Media Library, you can right-click it there, choose Properties, and click the License Information tab. The same information appears in both places.

If you have bought licenses for items that allow you to play the items for an indefinite period of time on your own computer, that doesn’t mean you can never move the media items to another computer. You can move them (giving up your privileges on the current computer, of course), but only if you have backed up your licenses. When you move the media to a new computer, you restore the licenses on the new computer.

caution

Microsoft allows you to restore your licenses on a maximum of four unique computers. If you reformat your hard disk and reinstall Windows XP, Microsoft considers the new installation to be a new unique computer.

Figure 16-6. You can read the terms of a media item’s license by displaying its properties dialog box, either in Windows Explorer or in Media Player’s Media Library.

Backing Up Your Licenses

To back up all of your media licenses, follow these steps in Windows Media Player:

1. Choose Tools, License Management.

2. In the License Management dialog box, shown in Figure 16-7, click Browse and then specify a location for your backup. You might want to create at least one backup on a removable medium.

3. Click Backup Now.

   
   

   Figure 16-7. If you have digital licenses, back them up! Otherwise you could lose your media collection when you move to a new computer.
   

Restoring Your Licenses

To restore your licenses, follow these steps:

1. Choose Tools, License Management.

2. In the License Management dialog box, shown in Figure 16-7, click Restore Now. The following appears.

   

   Restoring sends to Microsoft a globally unique identifier (GUID) that enables Microsoft to track how many times you restore your licenses. The company does this to discourage illicit replication of licensed files. (To read more about what information about your computer Windows Media Player might send over the Internet, click the Learn More button.)

3. Click OK.