Windows XP Power Hound

Recording, Mixing, and Copying Music

The hints in this section can help bring out your inner DJ.

Turning Off Copy Protection

The first time you copy songs from a CD, Windows Media Player asks whether you want to turn on copy protection, which is a system Microsoft uses to assign a digital license to a song so you can't illegally copy and redistribute it. Once a song is copy protected, transferring it to a device such as a portable MP3 player may not work if the device doesn't recognize the license Microsoft has assigned it. Because there are many legal ways you can copy songs, this setting does you no good. So when Windows Media Player asks if you want copy protection on, just say no.

If you've already activated copy protection, can you turn if off? Yes.

Turning off copy protection is easy. Open Windows Media Player and choose Tools → Options → Privacy, then uncheck "Acquire licenses automatically for protected content," as shown in Figure 14-8.

Note

There're two terms you need to know for working with audio CDs. Ripping, which sounds aggressive and possibly illegal, is simply the process of copying songs from a CD to somewhere else (say, your hard drive). Burning, also a little scary sounding, refers to the process of copying songs to a CD (also known as making a CD). Neither process is illegal.

For a quick and helpful tutorial on how to rip songs from a music CD into Windows Media Player, check out http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/windowsmediaplayer/videos/jukebox.mspx