Windows Media Player 10 restrictions

[TEAK36]

Is anyone else having problems with Windows Media Player 10? I often download music and video from P2P and Torrent sites, and have never had a problem playing them using Windows Media Player, but for some reason they will no longer play, I just get a licence error appear.I can rip music from a shop bought CD and it will play ok, but it will not play downloaded audio or video.I thought it might just be a problem with my laptop, but the same thing happens on my PC at work.I have automatic updates enabled and I just thought that maybe one of these updates has caused this to happen.Can anyone recommend a decent (free) media player that would play both MP3/WMA audio, and various types of video?I am not too bothered if it does not play video because I can use the player in my Nero program for the video.

[fo3nix]

do not use microsoft products like media player, it is infested with DRM technology (supposedly digital rights management, but its actually digital restrictions management).

for audio, use iTunes: http://www.apple.com/itunes

for video, use VLC: http://www.videolan.org/vlc

iTunes can happily import all your mp3s, and de-restricted .wma files from media player. but if you've ripped all your songs into the restricted .wma format, then iTunes cant do a thing with them; you'll have to rip again using iTunes. blame microsoft for this.

[qapmoc]

Yeah media player 10 sucks, I have the same kind of problems since my son upgraded without asking me first.