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Wal Mart Discontinues DRM...


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This is a few days old already, but still worth spreading the word for those customers who may not know yet.

article source: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/26/walma...utting-dow.html

Wal*Mart shutting down DRM server, nuking your music collection -- only people who pay for music risk losing it to DRM shenanigans

 

Posted by Cory Doctorow, September 26, 2008

 

Hey suckers! Did you buy DRM music from Wal*Mart instead of downloading MP3s for free from the P2P networks? Well, they're repaying your honesty by taking away your music. Unless you go through a bunch of hoops (that you may never find out about, if you've changed email addresses or if you're not a very technical person), your music will no longer be playable after October 9th.

 

But don't worry, this will never ever happen to all those other DRM companies -- unlike little fly-by-night mom-and-pop operations like Wal*Mart, the DRM companies are rock-ribbed veterans of commerce and industry, sure to be here for a thousand years. So go on buying your Audible books, your iTunes DRM songs, your Zune media, your EA games... None of these companies will ever disappear, nor will the third-party DRM suppliers they use. They are as solid and permanent as Commodore, Atari, the Soviet Union, the American credit system and the Roman Empire.

 

Boy, the entertainment industry sure makes a good case for ripping them off, huh? Buy your media and risk having it confiscated by a DRM-server shutdown. Take it for free and keep it forever.

 

Looking past the harshness with which the article was written, both it and quite a few of the following comments bring up some great talking-points.

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Hint. If you really want to 'own something', DON'T BUY ANYTHING WITH DRM. If it has DRM, You don't own it, they do. They get to decide what you can do with it, what you can play it on and if they want to, they can take it away from you. Unless you are a pirate, then these restrictions do not apply.
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Such systems aren't symbiotic, they are parasitics. They feed on the consumer, they feed on minor concurrents and eventually they cannibalize themselves. Such systems can't satisfy on healthy work's worth profits, they need an ever growing market sharing participation or risk collapsing, so they need monopolize that market. They grow fat and in so doing they need more food they can produce.

 

They know this, they know having a choice even the most indoctrinated consumer will cross the fence because no one can produce enough to pay for all facilities he is bombarded day after day. So they can't relieve at just owning what the consumer wants, they need to own the consumer himself.

 

Something is intrinsically wrong with the Intellectual Property politics. Shouldn't surprise the ones that knows they aren't supported by the reason have the most reason for defending their "reasons" at all costs, even honestly if necessary but not necessarily. So they need a mechanism that turns "rights=ownership" instead righteous. Although I can understand someone paying for an idea so to turn it into profit I can't understand how one can own the ideas from others. I can understand one acquiring the rights to exclusive use of an idea, for the intended defined and declared purpose, for a "right" time. I can't support things like "ALL RIGHTS RESERVED" which no business field is allowed to state, except the IP one. Note than not even the actual idea's author should be entitled such thing, since the mankind intellect shall not be entangled this way.

 

Much can yet be said, this topic is a vast and polemic one. But no good will be done extending this post yet more. Now is the time to think, not just to read.

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Exactly why I do not buy anything with DRM.

 

Actually, my wife and I don't buy audio CDs anymore like we used to. We hardly ever listen to music anymore (too busy). I preferred the old tried-and-true method of buying the audio cd, ripping it to MP3 (or WMA) to make custom audio CDs...since I usually bought CDs just for a single song. hehehe.

 

I do not condone piracy but if the only option was DRM with all these problems not being address, it certainly does paint piracy in a favorable color even for an honest person that was quite capable and willing to buy the product.

 

I hope the industry will wake up and take a whiff of the air. This could be the act of an industry loosing its power to other markets and trying desperately to hang on. I don't know but it certainly stinks and people won't take it for long.

 

LHammonds

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:rolleyes: Good thing I listen to the radio.

 

When I buy (rarely) a song on iTunes, I know it's a temporary file because of all the changes my computer goes through (reformats, videocards, iTunes uninstalls). I couldn't imagine someone buying tons of music on iTunes just for that reason.

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