DRM down for the count...

First Yahoo Music, now Wal*Mart. I would say "it looks like the consumer is winning", but that would be uncharacteristically optimistic of me.

A bit strange how the article presents this as a bad thing. The Wal-Mart e-mail clearly explains how you can avoid losing the downloaded music yet the article is still about "Wal*Mart shutting down DRM server, nuking your music collection".

I still prefer buying music on CDs if available. I just don't like buying music in a lossy format.

Btw, i recently stumbled over this:

-> http://www.gog.com

Not just Yahoo and Walmart -- don't forget Google Video and Microsoft's PlaysForSure (Oh, the irony in that name)



Still, the irony is that this 'workaround' (burn to disc and re-rip) wouldn't even be possible if the media companies got their way initially... and it's a bad thing nontheless -- it requires the customer to spend time and money (blank discs aren't free) to keep access to something they're honestly purchased... Provided that they 1) hear about this issue and 2) find the time to convert their entire library before the activation servers are down.
If their computer happens to have problems and needs a reinstall in the mean time, all their preciously purchased files will be worthless.

It's a big hassle, it's out of the customers control, and it costs them time and money to keep access to their purchased music -- how on earth do you not consider that a bad thing?!

Of course Walmart is completely entitled to discontinue selling DRMed music -- the more the better... But by turning off the activation servers they are essentially taking away functionality that was promised (or at least implied) when the original DRMed tracks were purchased. That's borderline fraud.

Yes in that sense it's a bad thing. I thought it was a good thing that they're doing away with a system that makes no sense. Why would someone buy music that depends on a server being active somewhere, instead of buying a CD that you can keep no matter what happens.

Although I suppose that "Steam" also works like this, and I bought a few games there too..

But yeah you're right, people paid for it and they just shut it down, that's bad.

i bought a few tracks from my 3 mobile handset (at varying prices), i could redownload the wma of it also (for free which was nice)
but since changing to a new hand set none of my songs play

i thought their DRM would be keyed into the SIM card not the handset

and although ive not bought anything off itunes yet all this DRM stuff puts me off, i only use it to sync my filled with ripped from CD's ipod, if i find a good band via a gig or myspace and go looking for their stuff i hope they are drm free cos if i cant buy their cd's im not getting stuffed by some new but good band

@taumel : Gog looks good, I've signed up for the newsletter.

DRM isn't really an issue if you have some spare time :o) Alot of video DRM can't be copied, with a loss of quality, by apps that capture each frame of the video buffer and recode a movie from those frame.

As for audio, you can easily record whats being played through the audio out channel. I'm sure there is apps out there that do it.

Got to agree with this one. DRM for me is nothing more than an electronic ransom note. A way for the bigwigs to reclaim the remote control on your leisure activities

For me it would be the same as buying a car with an immobiliser which only works when getting the nod from a satellite. If the satellite shuts down and your car no longer works, would you expect the car company to turn around any say, "sorry gov, you willl have to by another car!"

In that respect can you blame anyone going to a backstreet garage to get their immobiliser chipped?


Run that by me again? Are you saying I should break the law by COPYING DRM-PROTECTED MUSIC ??????

I think companies have not thought things through regarding protection which relies on servers to keep the software active
It's a non-profit hit afterall.

1) How long should companies be legally running servers required to activate DRM-shafted software?
2) What can Joe Public do if they buy a DRM game only to be faced with the server closing down in 2 weeks?

We MUST have some rights here(!) ???


I think companies should be FORCED to declare that their software is DRM-Infected

like i said in another post
its like needing a chip and pin card in your mp3 player to get it to work on a pay per play basis

some artists take their music offline and thus kill legally bought and downloaded DRM music on fans pc's due to the server/licence issues
these bands should be named and shamed and issue compensation/refunds to their fans, cos if it happend to me and i went to their gigs id probably kick the price of my deleted collection out of the lead singer

edit:
and trent (nine inch nails) reznor was a bit hypocritical of the whole price of CD's things, he voiced austrailian fans complaints about the year zero pricing compared to the rest of the world, the 10cent heat coating was meantioned for the price hike, a coating on ALL pressings to date, so the rep just said "we could put any price on it and your fans would STILL buy it" so one youtube video has him endorsing stealing music, im assuming torrents and not shoplifting but he wasnt speciffic and has been giving away his last few albums (as well as letting people buy them in shops) and via remix.nin.com hes given away the still in the shops remix albums for free
so far so good
the hypocritical bit i hinted at in that first chunk is due to the delux ghosts disc, iir only 1000 copies pressed, it came with the individual tracks on DVD like the y34rz3r0r3m1x3d album did so fans could remix and share via said website (and itunes podcast) but they were selling it at $70 if memory serves
the cd was $10 and the other albums method was bundled into the sub $20 price tag so WTF justified the price hike?
im hoping it was valuable limited merchandise but i would have prefered him to offer the DVD as a stand alone package for a couple of quid

edit:
http://ghosts.nin.com/main/order_options
the $75 is still on sale with the DVD but the $300 edition is the one that sold out within a week $300 ?!?

What they should do is offer all their customers to redownload the music they bought without DRM, and keep that server up for at least another year. Or make a tool available to clear the files of DRM, without re-encoding them.

B.t.w. has nobody cracked their DRM? That would be the way to go if you wanted to keep the quality of your music files.

but that would be silly ;)

I'm sure the pirates would love to get their dirty hands on one of those.