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Windows 10: How to Check if a Video or Music File is DRM Protected

By Mitch Bartlett 1 Comment

Some music and video files may have Digital Rights Management (DRM) embedded within the file. The purpose of DRM is to protect the file from piracy. Each person who obtains the video or audio file has it tied to them in some way, whether it be an account or a certain device. This discourages people from sharing the file.

DRM is still used with many video and music subscription services, but isn’t as common with purchased music these days because of the demand that the content work on multiple devices. Still, DRM protected MP3, WMA, MP4, AVI and M4V files may still litter your hard drive. The files get mixed among the non-protected files and leave you confused as to what is protected and what isn’t. If you use iTunes, there is a way to check for DRM protection from within the application. There is also a simple way to check in Microsoft Windows 10.

Check Multiple Files

  1. Navigate to the folder that contains your music or video files.
  2. Click the “View” menu and select “Details“.
    Win7 Set folder to Details
  3. Right-click any column header like Title or Name. A menu will appear where you can select “Protected“. If it’s not an option, select “More…” then check the “Protected” box and click “OK“.
    Win7 Enabling Protected Column
  4. Now you have a column that will tell you “Yes” if the file is DRM protected and “No” if it isn’t.
    Win7 view of Protected column

Check Individual Files

  1. Right click on any media file and select “Properties“.
  2. Select the “Details” tab and scroll down toward the bottom. There will be a “Protected” field that will say “Yes” or “No“.
    Win7 file Properties and Protected field

Now you know how to tell which files have DRM in them. If you wish to remove the DRM from the file there are software solutions available, but I personally haven’t had any luck with any of them. Video is especially hard to work with. Some services allow you to remove DRM from the music files they sell for a small fee, like iTunes Plus. A popular hack is to burn the music to a disc, then rip the disc to an unprotected MP3 with software like VLC Media Player.

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Filed Under: Windows Tagged With: Windows 10

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Eric Lewis says

    May 3, 2019 at 10:51 am

    I need a “program” or script to list all of my copy-protected files in my music collection. I just ran iTunes which converted my .WMA files to a Apple format but did not convert the copy-protected files … and more important, did NOT provide me a list of the files that are copy protected.

    With a list, my task of unprotecting the files would be a lot easier because most of my collection is not copy-protected.

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