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MLB Fans Who Bought DRM Videos Get Hosed

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed Nov 07, 2007 04:20 PM
from the digital-restrictions-management dept.
Media The Internet
Billosaur writes "Major League Baseball has just strengthened the case against DRM. If you downloaded videos of baseball games from MLB.com before 2006, apparently they no longer work and you are out of luck. MLB.com, sometime during 2006, changed their DRM system. Result: game videos purchased before that time will now no longer work, as the previous DRM system is no longer supported. When the video is played, apparently the MLB.com servers are contacted and a license obtained to verify the authenticity of the video; this is done by a web link. That link no longer exists, and so now the videos will no longer play, even though the MLB FAQ says that a license is only obtained once and will not need to be re-obtained. The blogger who is reporting this contacted MLB technical support, only to be told there are no refunds due to this problem."
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Submission: MLB Fans Who Bought DRM Videos Get Hosed by Billosaur (927319)
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  • No support? Hear from my lawyer. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Volante3192 (953645) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:23PM (#21272731)
    The blogger who is reporting this contacted MLB technical support, only to be told there are no refunds due to this problem

    I smell a class action coming along..

    • EULA? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by finnw (415539) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:31PM (#21272857) Homepage
      Depends whether anyone saved a copy of the EULA they signed when they downloaded the videos.
      If it favours MLB they'll find a copy. But if it doesn't, it would be quite easy for them to say "We've lost all copies of that EULA but our policy back then was to put in a 1-year time limit" and given the small numbers involved, probably no-one will be able to prove otherwise. I think I'll get in the habit of saving a copy before clicking on "I Agree" from now on.

      • How exactly (Score:4, Interesting)

        by CaptainZapp (182233) * on Wednesday November 07 2007, @06:32PM (#21274499) Homepage
        Does that jibe with the legal requirement of any business entity to safe keep their legal documentation for a minimum period of seven years?

        Claiming that an EULA is not a legal document sounds somewhat hypocritical.

        • Re:EULA? (Score:4, Informative)

          by kimvette (919543) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @05:26PM (#21273637) Homepage
          No. It states that YOU cannot post a time bomb, not that they won't sell you one.

          This is why DRM is evil, and so are EULAs when you are PURCHASING product.

        • Re:EULA? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by M. Baranczak (726671) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @09:06PM (#21276285)

          I think I'll get in the habit of saving a copy before clicking on "I Agree" from now on.
          Just out of curiosity, how are you planning to prove that the EULA you have is the one they made you agree to you?
          How are they planning to prove that the EULA they have is the one you agreed to?

    • Call 866-800-1275 and be a PITA (Score:4, Informative)

      by whackco (599646) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @05:04PM (#21273339) Homepage Journal
      Call 866-800-1275 just to be a pain in the ass. I don't even watch baseball, but I called it to protest their treatment of customers. The guy was nice to me, and admitted they have a big problem, they will try to fix.

  • Translation? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phalse phace (454635) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:24PM (#21272743)
    "....there are no refunds due to this problem.""

    It's your problem, not ours.

    • Re:Translation? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:55PM (#21273217)
      If the product is defective by design, and you buy it, and it turns out to be defective, the product is working as intended. I don't see what the problem is.

    • Re:Translation? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jeff DeMaagd (2015) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @05:03PM (#21273323) Homepage Journal
      There may yet be a chance to settle it.

      If you can dig up the credit card bills, you might still be able to do a charge-back. I know it's kind of pushing it, but my mom does the CC transactions for the family business, and she says that in some cases, there is time limit for a charge-back. It's really brutal for the merchant though, $15 fees per transaction on top of losing the money. Normally, I'd say doing a chargeback two years after the purchase is pretty dickish, this situation is ridiculous. I'd check your card's policies first, but once you know for sure, I suggest that you take it up with the customer service and threaten to do a charge-back before going through the procedure.

      • Re:Translation? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Intron (870560) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @05:09PM (#21273397)
        Seems reasonable. You got to use the video for two years. They got to use your money for two years. They take the video back, you take your money back. Fair is fair.

      • Re:Translation? (Score:5, Informative)

        by loraksus (171574) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @07:20PM (#21275165) Homepage
        BTW - Discover - the card with the most worthless chargeback policy in the industry (amex is the best) will automatically reject any claim that has to do with a purchase more than 6 months ago.
        While other cards have limits, the "clock restarts" in certain circumstances - for instance, if the product was sold with a 2 year warranty and they refuse warranty service, you're covered for x months after the claimed warranty expires to file a claim regarding warranty.
        So, despite what the wonderful people at MLB claim, you'll probably be able to file a successful chargeback. If you get resistance from phone CSRs, file a written chargeback (crappy banks (chase, etc) can jerk you around a lot more over the phone)
        BTW - Successful chargebacks are punitive to the merchants and a large number can significantly affect them financially, so this is the best way to get back at them.

  • Yea that's a shame... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Wolvie MkM (661535) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:24PM (#21272745)
    Excuse me while I enjoy my NHL feed on YouTube :)

  • A Slow Death (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JBMcB (73720) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:24PM (#21272749)
    I don't think DRM is going to go away until a lot more people get burned by it in this way. Most people don't understand or care, once something like this rears up and bites them in the ass, the outrage machine will start. Thank you, MLB, for being the obnoxious, monopoly-driven organization we've all come to love to hate.

    • Re:A Slow Death (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dachannien (617929) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:49PM (#21273127)
      Digital TV and the assault on the VCR/DVR is going to be the telling moment in the fight against DRM. Everybody's got a TV, and just about everyone has either set their VCR or DVR to record a show or movie for them or gotten their nine-year-old child to do it for them. When the media companies finally get their way and Joe and Jane Sixpack can no longer freely re-watch "It's a Wonderful Life" to their heart's desire every holiday season, there will be outrage. Of course, by that time, the technology will be so entrenched that it will be next to impossible to remove it.

      • Re:A Slow Death (Score:5, Informative)

        by HTH NE1 (675604) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @05:00PM (#21273291)

        Digital TV and the assault on the VCR/DVR is going to be the telling moment in the fight against DRM.
        A day doesn't go by when my Series3 TiVo doesn't tell me some HD programming it recorded is not authorized for display over an HDMI connection. (WTF?! Component I could understand, but why the hell would it prevent playing over HDMI?) So far I've managed to get around it by one or more of going back to Now Playing and selecting the recording again, turning the HDTV off and back on, or turning the HDMI switchbox between them off and back on.

          • Re:A Slow Death (Score:5, Funny)

            by SynapseLapse (644398) on Thursday November 08 2007, @04:27AM (#21279039)

            ...especially when the alternative is suffering the look from Wife 2.0 (I upgraded to the model with the nicer case) when, Cthulhu forbid, she can't watch Dancing with the Stars because of some HDMI BS.


            Completely off-topic, but I think using phrases suchs as "Wife 2.0" and "I upgraded to the model with the nicer case" are the real reasons you get that look in the first place.

      • Re:A Slow Death (Score:5, Funny)

        by mike260 (224212) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @05:07PM (#21273379)

        When the media companies finally get their way and Joe and Jane Sixpack can no longer freely re-watch "It's a Wonderful Life" to their heart's desire every holiday season, there will be outrage.
        Angry mob: "Hey! Where are those digital rights we gave you to manage? We want them back!"
        Jimmy Stewart: "Well I don't have your rights here, they're in Bill's house, and in Steve's house..."

  • One more reason... (Score:5, Funny)

    by capt.Hij (318203) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:24PM (#21272751) Homepage Journal
    This is one more reason not to pay money to watch grown men sweat a lot and scratch themselves. A few more of things like this and I am going to just give it up completely.

  • hmmm. (Score:5, Funny)

    by apodyopsis (1048476) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:25PM (#21272757)
    In a highly litigious culture, about a sport which borders on an obsession, about access perceived as a right...?

    I predict the big winners in this one will be the lawyers....

    • Re:hmmm. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iocat (572367) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:31PM (#21272853) Journal
      Access which you purchase with the proviso that it will always be there IS a right. It's fine to make fun of baseball, fans, and our culture, but if someone sold you a book, and told you you'd always be able to read it, and then two years later you couldn't -- well, to it bluntly, that's fucked. MLB needs to provide the access, or refund the money. It wasn't a time-limited purchase, and MLB is on the hook for this.

  • I wish I had that kind of time (Score:5, Funny)

    by Schlemphfer (556732) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:27PM (#21272801) Homepage
    DRM sucks, and inevitiably produces unfair situations like this, where legitimate licencees get screwed. But having said that, what kind of person has so much time on their hands that they would ever want to watch a baseball game from previous seasons? And I thought posting to Slashdot was a time waste ;)

  • Whoa now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chairboy (88841) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:28PM (#21272813) Homepage
    I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to talk about this without the express written consent of Major League Baseball.

  • Phoning home is OK for E.T. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by olddotter (638430) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:33PM (#21272887) Homepage
    I don't want any product hardware, software, or DRM media that must phone home for permission to work. Too much a risk that the company will go out of business, or decide maintaining the service is no longer profitable.

    If this story is true, I think a class action lawsuit is in order...

  • Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by n0dna (939092) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:35PM (#21272925)
    It's MLB.

    The videos already wouldn't play if it was Cold. Or Raining. Or Night. Or Outside.

  • Unlocking Software (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheVelvetFlamebait (986083) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:36PM (#21272937) Journal
    MLB should release unlocking software for the old DRM scheme, even if all the software does is apply the new scheme instead. DRM doesn't have to mean that the files you purchase suddenly become useless, if the company actually takes responsibility for it and fixes it. It's ethically their responsibility to rectify any damage their actions do to other people's property. But there's probably some clause saying that the people don't actually own the video, and are thus under no obligation to ensure the playability of the file. What's worse is that people aren't technically allowed to do it themselves, thanks to the DMCA. I think, however, that MLB is going to learn the meaning of the old saying: "those who aren't permitted to do, sue".
  • Fixed the headline for you.

  • this is not fascism (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cliffski (65094) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:57PM (#21273241) Homepage
    and the idiot who tagged it as such needs to read some history. This is BAD DRM, and sucks, and the people responsible are idiots and should be sued. but to equate not being able to watch sports videos with fascism is just immature bullshit that makes you look foolish. Don't cry wolf.

  • Took them long enough (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fujisawa Sensei (207127) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:59PM (#21273265)

    If you downloaded videos of baseball games from MLB.com before 2006, apparently they no longer work and you are out of luck. MLB.com, sometime during 2006, changed their DRM system. Result: game videos purchased before that time will now no longer work

    The change was made sometime during 2006, and its now October 2007, and people are only noticing this!?

  • People keep forgetting what DRM stands for (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alzheimers (467217) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:59PM (#21273273)
    DRM - Digital Rights Management.

    It's about THEIR rights, not yours.

  • Not the first time, not the last, but a good start (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Opportunist (166417) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @05:00PM (#21273287)
    This happened before. And it will happen as long as people buy cripplified content. ANY content that requires you to contact its maker before it plays has the chance to follow this road. No contact, no content.

    This will happen again, I'm sure. Whenever some media company goes out of biz, whenever some media company decides that they can make more money by disabling everything they already sold, this will strike again. And more people will get pissed.

    Unfortunately at the company that did it, not DRM itself. But given time, people will learn. People are used to "buying" content. They're used to buying a DVD and being able to play it 'til the earth stops turning. Changing this model will not go without resistance. It will take a while for the masses to notice that seemingly minor difference, but they will.

    Unfortunately that takes time. Whether it takes too long we'll see. It will sooner or later fall back on them, though. People will stop buying content, fearing that it will some day stop to "work".

    So what I started to do was to do some spinning myself. Whenever some friend of mine tries to buy something DRMified, I remind him of the time when whatever DRM crippled content backfired on him. Yes, it's another company, but it also got DRM, it just MIGHT do the same, ya know... Yes, it's a lie. Still, for some odd reason my conscience gives me an A-OK for it.

  • Easy for society to fix this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sloppy (14984) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @05:03PM (#21273319) Homepage Journal

    Don't give copyright protection to publications that use copy protection. DRM -> PD. Let publishers (and their markets) decide which mutually-exclusive way to go.

  • I work for MLB.com... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2007, @11:16PM (#21277407)
    ...and as an employee can honestly tell you that this latest DRM snafu is just that, a snafu. When the old DDS system has been taken offline, many people within the company predicted that this would happen, but this project has slipped due to technical difficulties. I for one feel really badly about how we're basically screwing the fans out of their money. As much as this is sad, however, I'd like to ask everyone to bear with us and let us work out a solution to this issue. We're not doing this on purpose, and a solution will be found.

    I hope at least some of you would believe me, even though I have to post anonymously. I'm really just another geek working for a big corporation, trying to make ends meet.

      • Re:Too bad it won't affect many... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Alzheimers (467217) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:50PM (#21273143)
        Apparently, according to this study, [philanthropy.com] not as much as if it were just ONE child:

        In another study, Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon, found that people were more sympathetic to a single starving child than they were to two children facing the same plight.

        "We cannot wrap our minds around two people as well as around one," said Mr. Slovic.

      • Re:Too bad it won't affect many... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Technician (215283) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @07:23PM (#21275191)
        If that's so, I'm one of those 20. Granted, it was only two games (total cost: just under $8 USD), but it shows the system is fucked beyond reproach.

        This is the beauty of the system and the Internet. As people find out what doesn't work, they quit buying it. From your comment "it shows the system is fucked beyond reproach." shows me you are not going to be a repeat consumer. Between online rent-a-song for the Plays for Sure music to retractable email, to Vista Activation, the fact is DRM is killing sales of content as more get the fact the system is broken.

        DRM, Activaction, and cost are the main reasons I left Vista upgrades out of my future plans. I have moved to Open Source. As such, DRM is now an incompatible format. I can't use DRM, so I don't buy it. Amazon got it. Apple is just now waking up to the fact.

        DRM protects content. DRM kills sales. Some loss due to piracy is an issue. DRM is the answer. Some loss of sales is due to DRM. When that is a bigger problem than piracy, DRM starts to go away. It happened on floppys and came back on CDs. Items with high incidence of copyright violations is the only items with DRM on CDs. Most software CD's except Games and high cost MS products and some high priced music and movies (High Def formats) are free of DRM. Most all my purchased software CDs are DRM free.

    • Re:No surprise there... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Andy Dodd (701) <atd7@NoSpAM.cornell.edu> on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:39PM (#21272983) Homepage
      Same thing that happened to people who bought into Microsoft's "Plays for Sure" system and then bought a Zune?

      Ooops... I found it hilarious that the first company to break compatibility with a system called "Plays for Sure" was the company that created the system... (Note that I said break it, companies which never implemented it in the first place don't count.)

    • Re:Serves them right (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bert64 (520050) <bert@@@slashdot...firenzee...com> on Wednesday November 07 2007, @04:55PM (#21273205) Homepage
      Unfortunately, most people don't realise what DRM is or why it's bad...
      They believe the marketing hype, designed to make people think it's a good thing. The people need to be educated about the dangers of DRM, and stories like this are good examples. People won't believe you without hard evidence, they're more likely to believe mass market propaganda.

    • Re:One down! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AK Marc (707885) on Wednesday November 07 2007, @06:29PM (#21274463)
      I'll order MLB Extra Innings instead,

      So you take a company being noticed for screwing their customers, and you are looking for ways to give them more money. And people wonder why corporations think they can do anything they want without repercussions.

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