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Walmart Caves On DRM Removal
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Oct 10, 2008 07:33 AM
from the just-kidding dept.
from the just-kidding dept.
cmunic8r99 writes in with an email he received from walmart.com yesterday evening about the pending shutdown of their DRM services (which we discussed a while back). Walmart has reconsidered and won't be shutting off its DRM servers after all. They are still moving to an all-MP3 store, but won't break all the DRMed music its customers have already downloaded; this because of "feedback from the customers."
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The Perils of DRM — When Content Providers Die 275 comments
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Wal-Mart (Score:5, Insightful)
Only did this so that people wouldn't sue them.
Re:Wal-Mart (Score:5, Insightful)
this because of "feedback from the customers."
Only did this so that people wouldn't sue them.
You say tomato, I say fruit. Whatever.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Whatever else you might want to say about Walmart, you at
least have to give them credit for being good at pandering
to their customers. That says as much about the Walmart
shopper as it does Walmart, but that's another rant...
Re:Wal-Mart (Score:5, Funny)
Tagged: suddenoutbreakoflawsuits
Parent
Re:Wal-Mart (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Wal-Mart (Score:5, Insightful)
What's your point? Walmart was looking out for their bottom line? You don't really think Walmart is in business because they get warm fuzzy feelings selling cheap shit to cheap people, do you? A lawsuit would have been an expensive waste of time for everybody involved, and they almost certainly would have lost. It was clearly in Walmart's best interest to avoid it.
That's the way it's supposed to work.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You know, I need to start manufacturing things with built-in self destruct switches and simply blow up my customers purchases when I need more sales. =)
Re:Wal-Mart (Score:5, Funny)
If these are in the form of a 'vest'....I think you'll find a ready made market over there in the middle east. Heck....make it voice activated:
LaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLa....BOOM!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I need to start manufacturing things with built-in self destruct switches and simply blow up my customers purchases when I need more sales. =)
Microsoft got the patent on that ages ago.
-
Re:Wal-Mart (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Wal-Mart (Score:4, Funny)
Ever bought a toaster outside of the US. You'll burn you hand the first time you use it. Not in America. The only toasters you find will be more carefully designed and labeled
Would this label say "do not insert hand into toaster while in operation?". Yeesh..
There is a big difference between "outside of the US" and "South Africa". Please stop making such crazy generalisations. I don't think I've ever burned my hand on a toaster..
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Might it have something to do with you knowing that it is hot, i.e. using your common sense? I will probably be modded flamebait, bit it seems to me that most people in the US of A simply have lost their common sense. While having non-hot toasters, do you also wait with getting the bread from it? Because, you know, it might be hot and you can feel a burning sensation? Well if you do, the obvious choice is of course to sue the maker of the toaster!
Re:Wal-Mart (Score:5, Insightful)
Horse shit. Walmart spends more on toilet paper for their in-store restrooms in a month than a lawsuit over this would have cost them. Plus I'd be willing to bet that there is fine print in the user agreement for all those DRMed tracks somewhere that says words to the effect of "we can turn it off any time with a few days notice and its your problem not ours".
It probably really was customer feedback and the fact that this was making Walmart look bad. Bad press is far more damaging than some piddly ol' nickel and dime lawsuit.
Parent
Re:Wal-Mart (Score:5, Informative)
Walmart spends more on toilet paper for their in-store restrooms in a month than a lawsuit over this would have cost them.
No, because they would have likely lost the lawsuit and the judge would have done one of two things:
1. Forced them to pay compensation to the people who bought the music.
2. Forced them to escrow money to keep the servers running.
Add in lawyer fees (plaintiff and defendant), and it is clear that they should just take #2 without the fight.
Plus I'd be willing to bet that there is fine print in the user agreement for all those DRMed tracks somewhere that says words to the effect of "we can turn it off any time with a few days notice and its your problem not ours".
I guarantee that is in there somewhere. But that doesn't make it enforceable.
It probably really was customer feedback and the fact that this was making Walmart look bad.
It was probably that, too. Not everything is black and white :) The added publicity from a lawsuit would have been detrimental as well.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Walmart spends more on toilet paper for their in-store restrooms in a month than a lawsuit over this would have cost them.
If you sue for the same sorts of "losses" that the RIAA sues for, then that $100,000+ per track would add up pretty fast.
Even with miserable total sales of 10,000 tracks, that'd be a billion dollar lawsuit.
Presumably... (Score:5, Insightful)
... they have a list of who bought which track. Wouldn't it be simpler to just send them non-DRMed copies of things they've already bought? At the very least, they could offer a discount for people re-buying tracks in a non-DRMed format.
Re:Presumably... (Score:5, Interesting)
They do not have the rights to take such actions as you propose. Only Apple/iTunes was smart enough to get that written into their contract.
Parent
Re:Presumably... (Score:4, Interesting)
Do it anyway. It would be fun watching tiny RIAA try to sue billion-dollar Walmart.
In my view all Walmart would be doing is simply trading "broken items" with new working items. Just like trading a broken radio for a working radio. That's called good customer service, and Walmart would gain far more money from their happy customers, then they'd lose against a mosquito like RIAA.
Parent
Walmart isn't judgement-proof... (Score:4, Informative)
There's been plenty of people who've sued Walmart, and won, even over smaller issues than beelyuns of imaginary dollars.
And Walmart's reactions AFTER the lawsuit are often completely disproportionate. Apparently, Walmart employees can get disciplined for working during their breaks now, because someone who had to work through their lunch break a bunch of times sued over it, and won. If you ask a Walmart employee for help and they say they're on break, and they can't, they really mean it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>Walmart employees can get disciplined for working during their breaks now...
Most stores have had that restriction for years. I got disciplined for working my break at JCPenney, and that was back in 1992! Don't blame the store; it's the government's fault that things are that way. The stores are merely trying to protect themselves form government punishment.
Back to topic:
- If Walmart sold DRM songs, and Walmart turns-off the DRM servers, those songs would be non-functional.
- Walmart has an *ob
Re:Presumably... (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, check the EULA. They literally spell out your rights. If for any reason, their DRM system needs to be taken permanently offline, they will provide you with the tools to remove the DRM from your purchased media.
That said, I would never knowingly purchase any DRM'd content. It just defies all intelligence.
Parent
Re:Presumably... (Score:5, Informative)
the cheapest short term solution to keep their customers happy is just to leave the DRM servers up.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if walmart has to pay the record companies out of its own pocket, what's the break even point? You pay for a bunch of MP3s once or you pay to maintain servers forever. At some people, the MP3 option becomes cheaper.
LK
Re:Presumably... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
DMCA exemption (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:DMCA exemption (Score:5, Informative)
I just looked at the legalese from 2006, and came up with the following:
Sound recordings, and audiovisual works associated with those sound recordings, distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require access to a central server as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or reproduction of published digital works by the original accessing entity. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine, system or service necessary to authorize the perceptible of a work stored in that format if a central server is no longer provided to authorize such perceptible./quote
Parent
The real price of DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
For consumers, living in constant doubt of their content. For providers, servers that they will have to run, like, forever. And the admins who maintain them.
retarded walmart hate (Score:3, Insightful)
someone are just plains stupid i guess.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They should have done the right thing the first time, without getting yelled at. They got caught doing something stupid, and had to take their hand back out of the cookie jar. It would have been better if we didn't have to beat them into doing the right thing.
virtualization hole (Score:3, Insightful)
Apologies for marginally off topic, but couldn't I write an 'audio driver' for Xen, Bochs, .... which took the samples intended for the sound card and store them to a file; un-drming anything? Same for DVDs? Where does this stand with DMCA? I'm not reverse engineering anything....
Now, if we can get off Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Hopefully they can pull their web developers' collective head out of their collective ass and make a web store that works on something other than internet explorer and windows.
Seriously, is this 1995 or something?
Whoops! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now *this* is good news.
Why? Because you can bet that Wallmart execs are not at all happy about having to pay for and run a bunch of servers that are no longer making them any money. You can bet that just opened their eyes to the downsides of DRM, and that some people at the top are now asking the music labels some tricky questions, namely "how long are we supposed to keep paying to run these damn things now?".
Wallmart will not want to be left in this position again, and I can see this causing them to put some real pressure on the music labels to drop DRM.
It also means that Wallmart, Apple and Amazon are all pushing for non DRM music. All together that's some pretty hefty leverage!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't have a single DRM'd song from iTunes, though I've bought about half a dozen albums. (iTunes just doesn't carry much of what I like.)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but...
Taken from the iTunes Store Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org]:
Re:Feels like a Scooby-Doo ending. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you seriously think the DRM servers will be running in 20 years? No way.
Parent
Re:Feels like a Scooby-Doo ending. (Score:5, Insightful)
All this means is that they will wait another year or maybe two before shutting down the DRM servers. They will in the end, there is no doubt.
Do you seriously think the DRM servers will be running in 20 years? No way.
While I'm in agreement, Walmart could certainly use that year or two in order to attempt to convince the labels to allow Walmart to remove the DRM from users' purchases. I think it'd be in their interest: they'd be able to shut down the DRM servers, they wouldn't take a big PR hit, and this episode would be much less likely to affect future music sales. Walmart is certainly willing to use their leverage to squeeze suppliers, and they probably have enough leverage with the labels to at least give it a try.
Would they get anywhere? Hell if I know.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The sooner they turn the servers off, the better. The public needs to learn that DRM means that they don't own copies of the media, despite what marketing would have them think.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think there is a lesson in this to the companies that sell DRM crap that depends on servers. It's a one-time purchase with a recurring cost to the seller. Ultimately, DRM is a losing proposition to the retailer - if you run the DRM servers long enough, you *will* lose money.
It's basically a ponzi scheme - to cover the cost of running the DRM servers, you have to keep finding new sales to prop up the running expenses on the old sales. Eventually you run out of new sales and you lose money.
The incrementa
Re:HUH?? (Score:5, Funny)
Turn off the DRM servers, transfer the file to another machine and listen to it again.
Listen to the windows error message sound.
Which sounds better?
Parent
Re:HUH?? (Score:4, Informative)
Hey I'll have you know the windows error message sound was mastered by King Crimsons Robert Fripp! [msdn.com] ;)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Walmarts executives are very interested in making money. They want to sell music, and they aren't especially interested in running DRM servers. They will use whatever method they can to get as much popular music into the hands of paying customers as possible.
$MusicLabel executives on the other hand are also interested in making money. They (until quite recently) seemed to think the best method of doing this was dem
Re:"Feedback" as in ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The discussion gets circular at some point, they are working for control because they think that will get them more money.
A buzzphrase that may or may not still be vocalized by executives is 'data driven decisions'. In practice a good many decision are still made according to gut feelings, or very thin data, or totally invented data. In part this is because getting good data is hard to do and even harder to find clear meaning in.
Here at Slashdot you have a demographic that should be more math oriented than most and yet you have people, this thread is a good example, writing about the financial and legal consequences of the Wal-Mart Corporation running or not running DRM servers. This is without a day's legal education in their lives and with no more financial experience than balancing their own checkbook. And with no clear actual numbers on which to base any of their conclusions.
So just like the above Slashdotters, music execs went with their gut feelings. They expected digital formats to work like every other format in the entire history of their business model. I don't blame them. All of the non-DRM music stores coming online seems to suggest their minds are changing. If these stores make for the music industry I'm sure DRM for music will be mostly abandoned.
Parent
Re:"feedback from the customers." (Score:5, Informative)
You're missing the point.
They might not want DRM, but they do want their previous purchased music to not suddenly become worthless.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Feedback ... (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll just quietly try it again in a year. Mark my words.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The good thing is that this will be a great example to smaller organisations (basically.. everyone) that DRM is a waste of money for the proprietors as well as a PITA for clients.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Such is the human condition, I guess. People are more interested in dicking people over that are more fortunate than them than improving their own situation. Go to a bar with a shuffleboard table, and you'll see everyone is more interested in knocking the other guy's puck thing off than scoring points for himself.