Nokia Music Store & DRM

[Viva]

So I got this great R200 music voucher for the Nokia Music Store with my new phone a few months back. For the first time in my life, I tried to buy music legally online. Here's a list of issues I ran into:

1) You need to use Nokia Ovi Player to download any music - no web interface is available.
2) On Windows XP, some other Windows components have to be downloaded before Ovi Player works.
3) Nokia Ovi Player is a horribly slow unstable piece of software.
4) Ovi Player doesn't seem to work through proxies - all the downloads fail.
5) Downloads are extremely slow - on a 4mb line, it took about 3 hours to download 3 albums.
6) The music come in WMA format. I hate WMA. MP3 FTW.
7) Bitrate is 192kbps. I would have liked 320kbps.
8) Music is DRM protected so I can't simply copy it over to my phone, I have to use OVI Player to transfer the files.
9) When instructed to play one of these tracks, my phone says "Verifying license information" and never stops. The phone eventually hangs, cannot be powered off and I have to remove the battery. This happened twice.

Now I ask you: Do they seriously expect us to pay for music if this is the punishment for going the legal way?

The music I downloaded are from Watershed, Arno Carstens and Mean Mr Mustard. All South African bands. So I would like them to get money for their great music. Now my dilemma is that it's quite hard to find torrents for this music. So my only option is to remove DRM and convert to MP3. Can anyone recommend good software to do this? Otherwise I'll have to write these to disks and rip them again.

 

[kiepie]

I do understand the limits they try and impose with this "free downloads for a year" if you buy a Nokia X6 (and others), but on music you buy? Surely once you have the track you can transport it to your other devices as you like. (even if it is illegal) This will kind of put me of if I ever decided to download music from the Nokia Music Store.

Is the procedure you followed with the voucher the same as if you would have used a credit card?

 

[Viva]

I think so, yes. I never used a credit card with Nokia Music store before though. After logging in, there's an option to 'redeem you voucher/pin" on which I clicked and entered the pin, which gave me R200 to use.

EDIT: Yes I am absolutely supposed to be able to play the file on my phone, but for some reason it's a little buggy I guess. It actually works for some tracks and for others it doesn't.

 

[kiepie]

I think so, yes. I never used a credit card with Nokia Music store before though. After logging in, there's an option to 'redeem you voucher/pin" on which I clicked and entered the pin, which gave me R200 to use.

There is some programs out there to take care of the DRM issue. I'm on local right now, so sorry for no links.

 

[IceQB]

I had similar problem, use a nice little app called SoundTaxi Pro (google)
Works like a charm for all DRM music

 

[Viva]

I had similar problem, use a nice little app called SoundTaxi Pro (google)
Works like a charm for all DRM music

Thanks very much, this looks like the perfect program.

 

[Creag]

@ Viva, have you put your list of issues to Nokia? I'd be interested to hear what their response was. It almost sounds like everything that could wrong did?

Unfortunately DRM is one of the factors Nokia 'sells' the CWM deal. A few months ago in an interview of radio they spoke of 'selling' their music without DRM, but were still exploring their options in this regard. Seems that this will remain the route for them for the foreseeable future. Pity

Just as I was thinking of a CWM option on my next phone, you post this. So I am back into the valley of decision on the next phone option.

 

[LazyLion]

That's strange... the music I download from the internet has no DRM in it!

 

[Creag]

That's strange... the music I download from the internet has no DRM in it!

But the Nokia CWM isn't your source, now is it

 

[seven7seven]

And every few plays (or some time elapsed, not sure) it will force you to log in to Ovi music store again in order to renew the DRM licence. Sucks.

Purchased music from Ovi is quite crummy, BUT music downloaded from the "Comes With Music" deal is even worse! ->

• You can only play it from one registered PC or one registered CWM device (ie. phone), in other words you CAN' T even transfer it to a portable player that supports WMA DRM (like a Zune)! (pls somebody tell me differently...)
  
• No burn rights at all! Having purchased some tracks from the store before using CWM, I was expecting the same DRM rights - oh boy was I wrong!

And yeah totally agree that the downloads from Ovi are TERRIBLY slow - averaged 16kB/s on a 4mb line... PATHETIC!

CWM in China is DRM-free, hopefully in a few years (!?) that'll spread to all regions.

 

[Viva]

@McT: It almost felt like everything did go wrong In retrospect, I was probably expecting too much. Now that I know the shortcomings of the service, it will probably not be so frustrating to use it again. I'm listening to my legal DRM-free music right now. I used SoundTaxi to remove the DRM and convert it to mp3. It did work like a charm, just like IceQB said.

About Ovi Player being slow and unstable: it might be that I'm a little overcritical. I suggest you try it yourself. So if you are willing to go through the little trouble of converting your music, CWM might not be so bad.

I now decided that if I want to buy music in the future, I'll rather go buy the CD at the store and rip it myself.

 

[Creag]

@McT: It almost felt like everything did go wrong In retrospect, I was probably expecting too much. Now that I know the shortcomings of the service, it will probably not be so frustrating to use it again. I'm listening to my legal DRM-free music right now. I used SoundTaxi to remove the DRM and convert it to mp3. It did work like a charm, just like IceQB said.

About Ovi Player being slow and unstable: it might be that I'm a little overcritical. I suggest you try it yourself. So if you are willing to go through the little trouble of converting your music, CWM might not be so bad.

I now decided that if I want to buy music in the future, I'll rather go buy the CD at the store and rip it myself.

Thanks for the feedback. Must say, I do prefer to buy my music. I shop around including online shopping to find the best price. Torrents are only used for previewing the album/music. If I like it, I buy it. If not, delete!

Still inclined to go the Nokia route for my next phone - preferably with the CWM option, failing which it will probably be the BB Bold 9700 (just don't like the absence of the radio in the BB )