WMA formats, How do I import into iTunes?

Question

Hi There, This is my first time here...
I purchased a new CD and wanted to add it to my library, but I couldn't. So I asked their "tech support".
I have cut and pasted their response.
My questions: How do I copy the songs to iTunes?
and in the last para of the response, they make it sound like Apple is the hold up for making this process easier, is that true? is there an easy fix for this?
THE EMAIL BEGINS HERE......Thanks
Hello Tangela,
Thank you for contacting us. We appreciate your purchase of the Anthony Hamilton CD and will be happy to assist you with the music transfer.
Please follow the instructions below in order to move your content into iTunes and onto an iPod:
If you have a Mac computer you can copy the songs using your iTunes Player as you would normally do.
If you have a PC place the CD into your computer and allow the CD to automatically start. If the CD does not automatically start, open your Windows Explorer, locate the drive letter for your CD drive and double-click on the LaunchCD.exe file located on your CD.
Once the application has been launched and the End User License Agreement has been accepted, you can click the Copy Songs button on the top menu.
Follow the instructions to copy the secure Windows Media Files (WMA) to your PC. Make a note of where you are copying the songs to, you will need to get to these secure Windows Media Files in the next steps.
Once the WMA files are on your PC you can open and listen to the songs with Windows Media Player 9.0 or higher. You may also play them in any compatible player that can play secure Windows Media files, such as MusicMatch, RealPlayer, and Winamp, but it will require that you obtain a license to do so. To obtain this license, from the Welcome Screen of the user interface, click on the link below the album art that says If your music does not play in your preferred player, click here. Follow the instructions to download the alternate license. PLEASE NOTE: This license is only necessary for playing the copied songs in a media player other than iTunes or Windows Media Player. If you are just trying to use iTunes, simply continue with these instructions.
Using Windows Media Player only, you can then burn the songs to a CD. Please note that in order to burn the files, you need to upgrade to or already have Windows Media Player 9 or greater.
Once the CD has been burned, place the copied CD back into your computer and open iTunes. iTunes can now rip the songs as you would a normal CD.
Please note an easier and more acceptable solution requires cooperation from Apple, who we have already reached out to in hopes of addressing this issue. To help speed this effort, we ask that you use the following link to contact Apple and ask them to provide a solution that would easily allow you to move content from protected CDs into iTunes or onto your iPod rather than having to go through the additional steps above. http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html
Please let us know if we can assist you further.
Thank you,
Rob
SunnComm Tech Support
CLIENT: [email protected]
How do I import the songs into iTunes so that I can play them on my iPod?
iPod HP laptop   Windows XP  
iPod HP laptop   Windows XP  

Answer 1

To answer your Question in short, yes apple is the hold up. A more detailed answer follows.
THe steps they tell you to do are basic steps for removing protection or "DRM" usually. Most record companys today go all out to protect there copyright songs by putting DRM "Digital Rights Management" or protection on them. Almost all the world (Last I looked it was roughly 95%) of the world uses a PC with Microsoft on it. Since Microsoft installs windows media player on all windows, the record companys have found it most easy to have there songs copied with the program in the "Protected WMA" file format.
Apple and Microsoft are from 2 different worlds and have went against eachother pretty much the whole 20 something years modern computers have been around. Since Microsoft made and owns the WMA format, any company that makes products that will play this format have to pay what they call a "Royalty fee".. Apple isn't about to pay micorsoft for anything like that, as they themselfs are pushing there own royalty fee based format of AAC. Apple does offer in iTUnes to convert UNprotected WMAs.
The steps they gave you to do (as they didn't mention to you cuz they don't want you to know) is steps for actually "Taking off" or "Removing" the protection off the song. the industry has yet to figure out how to keep protection on digital songs when its being burned to a CD. So when its burned to the CD and the protection is off, now iTUnes has full access to the music