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Any ideas how I can create a DRM scheme to protect MP3 files using C++ or perhaps some other language?

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MP3 is (luckily) DRM-free. If you make a DRM-protected MP3 file, it will not be an MP3-file anymore, and no application will play it (except possibly yours). –  Pavel Minaev Aug 16 '09 at 7:52
Please don't. There are enough broken DRM systems already... What happens when you no longer support your licence server? And this has happened repeatedly already... –  Matthew Scharley Aug 16 '09 at 7:59
I don't understand the down-vote on this one. It's a perfectly valid question. Since the question is rather technical, religious views on DRM should not affect the answer or votes. As far as I can see, the question was not regarding users opinions on DRM. As Pavel Minaev points out, if you protect a MP3 file with a DRM scheme, no application will likely play it except yours - which one could say is one of the ideas behind DRM. –  Tomas Vinter Oct 5 '09 at 7:28

4 Answers 4

The first thing to learn is that DRM systems only inconvenience the innocent consumers.

The content will have to be available in the clear at some point in order to be of any use. The determined person will intercept it at that point and make a unencumbered copy.

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Like all the people who burnt their DRM'd WMA's to audio cd's then re-ripped them to mp3... What a waste of plastic... –  Matthew Scharley Aug 16 '09 at 8:01
Yeah, I wish there was some way to emulate a CD-Rom with an image file ;) –  Zed Aug 16 '09 at 9:33
Music,video and book DRM, perhaps. Data intended for automatic processing (such as a Text-To-Speech engine) does not suffer from this limitation. The content never becomes avilable in the clear, merely the end result. (Getting offtopic though) –  MSalters Aug 17 '09 at 8:13

You probably should first consider how many millions of dollars have already been invested in trying to protect music or video files.

And the number of music or video files that currently cannot be copied is zero.

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I recommend the UNIX command "rm file.mp3". This will ensure that nobody will listen to your music file.

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Not necessarily true, if you're good at hard disk recovery. –  Chris Lutz Aug 16 '09 at 8:40
shred file.mp3; rm file.mp3. :) –  Jeremy Powell Aug 16 '09 at 9:06

I find the unlink() call quite effective in preventing unauthorized listening.

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