My county library allows downloads of audio books in mp3 and wma formats, which can be transferred to MP3 players. This is great, but when the ‘loan’ period expires the files will no longer play. I understand the reason for this but the 7 days allowed isn’t enough to listen to long novels. Is there a way I can use Audacity to produce modified versions of the files (for my own private and personal use only, of course) that would stay useable?
Are you sure they’re MP3? I didn’t think MP3 had any protection. I’m not surprised that Windows Media does that.
You could always record “What’s Playing On The Computer.”
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_recording_audio_playing_on_the_computer.html
Koz
Further to Koz’s suggestion, you could perhaps you record them overnight. Don’t go over about 13.5 hours per track at 44100 Hz, or you won’t be able to reopen them as Audacity projects. See http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/File_Management_Tips#Reopening_large_projects_in_Audacity_2.0.5_or_earlier .
Or if the DRM protection permits it, burn the the files to audio CD ( see http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/faq_opening_and_saving_files.html#tocd ) . This means a maximum of 74 to 80 minutes per CD.
MP3 DRM is possible but uncommon. Google Play does it with hidden ID3 tags:
http://stuff-i-blog-for-remembering.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/remove-google-play-store-mp3-tags.html .
Gale