IE7 breaks my song! It doesn't save the DRM license for a WMA file

I have one of very, very few copies (two that I know of are in existence) of the closest thing to an original recording of "Cruisin' The Graveyard" by Anthony Retka (Tone of Tone & Niche) the world will ever have. Yes, I know their music isn't for everyone but it's music to my ears. It's indie, self-produced, and self-promoted. I dig that.

Nevertheless, I had the occasion to dig out the CD containing my copy of the original recording. I wanted to see if I could rework it as an OGG (or, gasp! an MP3), having learned a lot about sound since I originally ripped it to OGG format. The original recording is in WMA format and uses some digital rights management (DRM) scheme. So when you go to play it for the first time on a computer, it opens a page to download a license. Normally, that's not a problem.

Recently I had loaded Internet Explorer 7 on my computer. And that's when I found IE7 has some weird issue saving the DRM license to my computer.

Now, this particular song is not one of Tone's favorites, though it is one of my favorite songs despite the poor quality of the recording. I've asked him if he might ever freshen it up and re-record it. I don't think he will. It's artistically ancient history from another time in his life--and it's obvious he has matured as a singer/songwriter since Cruisin' was written, performed, and (fortunately for me) recorded.

The lesson: if you have any DRM enabled WMA files, make sure you either get their licenses before you upgrade to IE7, or you rip them to OGG (or, MP3 if you must) before you upgrade to IE7.