Bypassing Universal Studio's MP3 Security the EZ Way

by Akurei

Recently, while working on a video project for giggles, I needed to use some music I didn't readily have available.

And every once in a blue moon, I actually feel guilty and pay for music.

Normally, this has never been an issue, and I'd just snag the song off Amazon/iTunes and go to town.  However, this time upon trying to import my newly downloaded song I was greeted with a lovely Import failed: Class not registered error.

This left me quite perplexed as both a programmer and someone with more codecs than you can shake a stick at.  I knew I had the tools needed to play the song... so why wouldn't it import into any of my editing software?

Googling the issue led to typical responses of the error having to do with missing codecs.  I knew this wasn't the case in my situation so I disregarded all of that and went back to the file itself.

Looking into the properties nothing really looked any different, typical copyright and file permissions, blah blah blah.

But I started thinking, well maybe it does have something with the copyright from Universal Pictures.

Firstly, I figured I'd try to just strip the data via Windows and use the "Remove Properties" tool.  While this did clear all the metatags, it didn't remove the copyright, and the file still wouldn't import.  (It never hurts to try the obvious.)

Then I started thinking back on when a friend would send me tons of bootleg DVDs from China.

They were always in PAL format and I remembered having to convert them so they'd be viable stateside.  While I knew this was a very different issue, I figured maybe some of that software's conversion tools could be applied to this situation.

That software being the VLC Media Player (videolan.org), which I surmise most people reading this are already more than familiar with.

As I mentioned earlier, the file in question had no problem being run through Winamp/WMP/VLC.

So I loaded it into the 1.0.5 Goldeneye build.  I then went through the "Media" menu to "Convert/Save".  This brings up a new window that lets you select just about any file you could possibly want.

I added the MP3 in question and clicked "Convert/Save" at the bottom of the screen.

This in turn pops-up a new and more important menu.

You will see a source path to your file, a blank output path, and a format profile.

I copy/pasted the source to the output, added a number so they wouldn't overwrite, and set the format profile to MP3.

Upon clicking "Save" the player will reappear and look as though it's playing but no sound comes through (no touchy - let it do its thing).

As this was happening, I had the folder open to watch the formation of the output.  I was initially suspect as the output was tiny by comparison to the original.

A seven megabyte MP3 had suddenly become three megabytes and yet there were no changes made to the encoding method/frequency.

Loading the new version into VLC, I was expecting static, garbled sounds, or maybe nothing at all.  So I was pleasantly surprised when it played perfectly with no loss from the original.

I then checked the file properties and - what do you know - all metatags were clear, including that nasty copyright/bloatware, and fully editable if I'd wanted to.

Lastly, I went back to my movie project and once again tried importing the song.  My new copy of the song imported without a problem, and my video project was finished shortly thereafter.

Later, out of curiosity, I scanned other purchases from both Amazon and iTunes to discover it is not a global issue with them, but rather varies from publisher to publisher (in my case the issue stemmed from Universal Pictures, a branch of Universal Studios).

That being said, the methods detailed above worked for every case I found.

There are, of course, other ways to accomplish what I did in this article.  However, the method described here is likely one of the easiest you will find.