What does invalid license on your MP3 player mean?

Answer 1

There is one of two reasons that you would get an invalid license error on your MP3 music file: First, if you download MP3's or other multimedia types from a gnutella (filesharing) or torrent, and it requires a "special" license, chances are the license requires Window's Media Player to download some advertisement that is gutted with spyware, adware, or other malicious code. Trojan horses are the worst, and once you got it, it's almost impossible to get rid of it.

The other common reason that MP3's experience "license" errors has to do with a new concept called Digital Rights Management. This is encountered most typically in one of two ways: First, Sony MP3 players (and some others) require that you load your music to the player via Atrac's software interface. Atrac encodes the mp3's so that they will now only play on your mp3 player. If you try to share the song with a friend by copying it to your friend's computer, the song will not play, because the Sony MP3 device that it was written too is not present. Second, Apple Itune's Media Software also incorporates DRM protection. In most situations, sharing music, or copying music is a violation of RIAA's ownership policies. iTunes tries to transparently protect it's customers from violating RIAA policies by encoding music that is downloaded from the Itunes store. According to Itunes own protective policy, you can "authorize" up to 5 devices that your music will play on. If your music is not on one of these 5 devices that you registered with Itunes online music store, it won't play.