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Wal-Mart Ends DRM Support
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Sep 27, 2008 11:17 AM
from the enjoy-your-rights dept.
from the enjoy-your-rights dept.
An anonymous reader writes "So, you thought you did well to support the fledgling music industry by purchasing your tracks legally from the Wal-Mart store? Well, forget about moving these tracks to a new PC! Since they started selling DRM-free tracks last year, there's no money to be made in maintaining the DRM support systems, and in fact, support is being shut down. Make sure you circumvent the restrictions by burning the tracks to an old-fashioned CD before Wal-mart 'will no longer be able to assist with digital rights management issues for protected WMA files purchased from Walmart.com.' Support ends October 9th."
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Wal-Mart Ditches DRM, Keeps Censorship 455 comments
Smiley Face writes "Wal-Mart has hopped on the DRM-free bandwagon with today's announcement that it will be participating in Universal's DRM-free sales pilot. The quality looks good: 256Kbps MP3 for 94 cents apiece, but customers are likely to be turned off by the retail chain's continued censorship. 'It's a bit hard to believe that all the customers who shop at the world's largest retailer want censored versions of music, though, but that's what they get. Only edited versions of albums with parental advisories are available, just as they are in Wal-Mart's offline stores. This isn't a new policy; Wal-Mart's online music store has carried only edited versions for years, but it's worth pointing out to potential new users tempted by the lower prices and lack of DRM.'"
Submission: Wal-Mart ends DRM support by Anonymous Coward
[+]
Walmart Caves On DRM Removal 215 comments
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."
[+]
The Perils of DRM — When Content Providers Die 275 comments
An anonymous reader writes "If you purchase music or movies online, what happens if the vendor goes out of business? Will you have trouble accessing your content? The question came up recently after HDGiants — provider of high-quality audio and video downloads — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. A consumer says his content became locked inside his PC. Walmart customers suffered a similar fate last year when the retailer shut down its DRM servers (a decision they reversed after many complaints). And if Vudu dies? Your content may be locked in a proprietary box forever. Time to start buying discs again?"
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refund (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know Wallyworld's terms of service, but are the customers within their rights to demand refunds?
Re:refund (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:refund (Score:5, Insightful)
They can demand all they want. Doesn't mean they will get it.
You ignored my question in favor of going on a rant.
Obviously, they have the right to say what they want. I was asking if their demands are supported by law. Perhaps under an implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for purpose. Also, the TOS could have terms relating directly to the shutdown of the service.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He did answer it really. You can ask all you want but you can be damm sure that the walmart lawyers have already thought of this.
In a license or eula SOMEWHERE is a clause that lets wallyworld get away with this without giving refunds.
Really. one of the worlds biggest corporations vs. a bunch of suckers who downloaded DRM music. Who do you really think is going to get the short end of the stick? I mean really...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Except in California, where EULAs are on some very shaky legal ground.
Re:refund (Score:5, Funny)
Except in California, where EULAs are on some very shaky legal ground.
EVERYTHING is on shaky ground in California http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs [usgs.gov]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wal-mart for all its problems is pretty liberal with its return policy. My guess is that if you could talk to someone who even knew they sold music online they would either a) give you a refund or b) give you the tracks again DRM-free.
Re:refund (Score:5, Insightful)
Have to agree with this.
Walmart has very customer friendly return policies in their bricks-and-mortar stores.
The stores are pits, and the actual customer service sucks (I've stood at the pickup desk for a half hour just waiting for someone to show up and get my web order) but when you need to return something, they're very, very good about it.
Got some ugly crap for Christmas from your mother who, somehow, doesn't understand the concept of "gift receipts" and just says "if you don't like it, I got it at...." instead like it's still 1982?
If they can scan that particular piece of ugly crap and identify it as something they might have sold her, they'll give you back the current sale price on a gift card, so you can go buy juice and cereal. No hassles.
Target, on the other hand, are a bunch of bastards with crazy rules like "we'll take it, but you have to find something else to buy from the same department."
Parent
Re:refund (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't really expect them to give you anything except what they're selling for without a receipt, can you? You could have bought it five minutes ago. If you'd had the receipt (or a gift receipt) and they'd given you $5 then I'd be mad.
Wish my mom would understand that.... we got $2 or something for a set of Christmas dishes that I'm sure she paid $20 for.
Parent
Re:refund (Score:5, Insightful)
Baby stuff is very frequently shoplifted; low-income people have kids (lots!) that soil themselves as often as rich people's kids do, and they don't like cloth nappies any more than you do. So even though it doesn't make "sense", they had no idea what the providence of your diapers were; you could have bought them stolen for 20 cents on the dollar.
How hard was it to show them a driver's license, anyway?
Parent
Re:refund (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know Wallyworld's terms of service, but are the customers within their rights to demand refunds?
I suspect it depends on whether they use the term "purchase" anywhere on the eula or site...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would be amazed if they refuse to give refunds. Think about it - Walmart has deep pockets, they are still selling music (and still seeking to make a profit off it), and they don't have a monopoly on music.
Pissing off past customers isn't exactly good business practice, and (I hate to admit it) Walmart is actually run by very skilled businessmen.
Re:refund (Score:5, Insightful)
So the moral of the story is that if you are willing to commit fraud you can get free cereal.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Its not really free cereal, More like half price cereal.
Re:refund (Score:5, Interesting)
Sometimes in order to catch a thief, you have to use the tactics of a thief (deception, buying black market goods, and using weapons). Example: Dish Network sold me a digital tuner box which was so poorly-programmed, it barely worked. A few months later Dish released v1.06 with all the bugs removed, and since my warranty was still good, I asked to exchange boxes.
Dish refused saying they had no record of me as a customer. They lost the sale! Idiots. So since Dish effectively defrauded me, I decided to borrow a page from the same book. (1) I bought a brand-new revision v.106 box. (2) When the package arrived, I swapped the tuners and returned my defective v1.00 box. (3) I contacted my credit card company, explained the situation, and provided proof the item was returned to Dish. (4) The credit company reversed the charge. (5) It costs me about 5 dollars in postage, but at least now I have a working digital tuner.
Dish tried to scam me via selling a defective box, and failed. And now Walmart's trying to do the same thing; if necessary I would find a way to recover the money. Perhaps the credit card company could reverse the charge for this now-broken DRM and worthless Walmart music. If not there are other ways your credit card could help you recover the money you lost.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
A second wrong may seem justified, but it does not make a right.
Morality is, of course, completely relative.
Re:refund (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
In Massachusetts? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if this would count as an unfair and deceptive practice as described in Massachusetts G.L. 93A.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A change. (Score:5, Insightful)
An interesting change in the wind. Suddenly, DRM is not just bad for consumers but good for re-sellers, where the cost of pissing off your clientele has to be weighed vs the cost of producing DRM-laden product, but aside from being utterly useless it actually harms the company directly by costing it money.
This is something that companies will listen to- and quickly. I suspect that this begins the downward spiral of heavy-handed DRM.
At least, I hope so...
HAHAHA tag? (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of people said it, long ago. DRM won't work for this very reason (and many others) and now those who were legal, and honest, and bought DRM'd content have to suffer AGAIN. It's not just Wal-Mart, how many other content providers also shut down, or screwed their customers by dropping or changing the DRM.
Me? I'm still sitting back, waiting for the industry to calm down and pull their heads out. Punishing the customer won't stop the criminals, never will. Now that the US Dollar is about to be worth ... next to nothing, they will have to kiss customer's asses to get them to spend money. We'll see how this all plays out. Even the DOJ doesn't like the **AA's game plan. It's falling apart on them. Wal-Mart is NOT a small retailer. This is a large nail in the coffin that DRM will be put to rest in.
Re:HAHAHA tag? (Score:4, Insightful)
People are STILL buying DRM tracks?? At this point I don't blame the retailers, but the consumer. Amazon has been selling DRM free tracks for a long time now, and they're usually cheaper to boot!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:HAHAHA tag? (Score:4, Informative)
You mean the internet exists outside the US? :p
Parent
Re:iTunes (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect the sale of DRMed music still exceeds the sale of non-DRMed music, thanks to the music label's insistence on Apple DRM'ing their music.
There, fixed that for ya. It's all up to the music labels. The only reason Amazon can sell DRM-free music is because the labels let them. And they don't let Apple, because they want Amazon to emerge as a competitor. Once distribution becomes a commodity again, the labels (who have a monopoly over the content) can jack prices back up. Right now it's Apple vs. the labels keeping prices in check. When the labels induce Amazon's success, it will be the consumers against the labels directly... and we know who will win then.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Punishing the customer won't stop the criminals, never will.
That should read "Punishing the customer will increase the criminals' numbers, always will."
Re:HAHAHA tag? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone with ideas on how to educate the general population [on DRM]?
Shut down the Wal-Mart DRM servers.
Parent
Almost had to re-buy all of their music... (Score:5, Interesting)
My sister (who is obsessed with music) bought hundreds of dollars worth of music from Wal-Mart's music downloading service. Recently, her MP3 player started acting strange and refused to play any DRM songs, so I had to reformat the whole MP3 player and resync all of her music to it. (There was also serious filesystem corruption)
If Wal-Mart had ended their DRM support yesterday...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But the point is a backup would have been useless (Score:4, Informative)
Nonetheless, it's always a good idea to backup your favorite music, regardless of the format in which it was purchased.
No it's not.
Not in this case.
For you see, when he went to re-load the backed up music it would re-contact the Walmart DRM server looking for authorization... A server which no longer exists.
Parent
Re:But the point is a backup would have been usele (Score:3, Informative)
It's not rocket science. It's only audio, and it's very easy to work with.
There are plenty of ways to backup that don't involve DRM, but it really won't matter until there is a mass of people who want to remove the DRM from their purchased music. Of course, if there was a mass of people using Wal-Mart's music service they wouldn't have shut it down in the first place.
Vote of no confidence (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM cannot be trusted. DRM retailers cannot be trusted to keep up the support. This is why people should never buy DRM.
Unexpected (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't expect them to okay users to resort to the analog-hole, something that many companies and legislators have been trying to stop for years. Will other DRM services be this forgiving when they shut down their servers?
Re:Unexpected (Score:4, Insightful)
The WMA DRM protection system can explicitly allow or disallow users to burn CD audio from the encrypted files. It's not necessarily using the analog output, which would obviously have to be redigitized, resulting in further quality loss.
Also, they can't really stop the "analog hole" until they implant DRM-laden microchips in our ears, and forcibly encode all the world's audio sources. Or ban all consumer microphones and recording devices.
Parent
DRM Escrow (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why not replace the DRM'ed songs with non-DRM'ed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, wait....the RIAA won't get to double-dip customers if that happens. Now I see.
And EA wonders... (Score:5, Informative)
(Yes, I'm aware they claim they'll release a patch before they turn off the servers, but if they go bankrupt tomorrow and can't PAY anyone to develop said patch, then what?)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Another one bites the dust (Score:5, Informative)
Why isn't there a tracker page at Defective By Design [defectivebydesign.org] for how many of these DRM services have died? Google's video, Yahoo's music service, MSN Music, MTV, MLB.tv, CSS, etc?
DRM's limited lifetime (Score:3, Interesting)
"But that's never going to happen to [DRM service X]. The company behind [DRM service X] is just too big and profitable!"
support isn't free (Score:5, Insightful)
something people are missing here (Score:4, Insightful)
Wal-Mart's music store didn't shut down. They just stopped doing DRM. That should be considered to be a good thing.
Has anyone thought about lobbying Wal-Mart to offer the DRM-free versions of the DRM tracks that customers had bought, perhaps by paying whatever difference in price there was? That is something that Wal-Mart management might be convinced to do; but it won't happen if all you do is scream at Wal-Mart for shutting down their DRM servers.
In other words, let's make this lemon into lemonade. Let's establish a precedent, that forces DRM stores to distribute DRM-free versions to the customers when the DRM store shuts down.
That, boys and girls, will kill DRM faster than the current tone of bitching and moaning on ./
Re:DRM is dead (Score:5, Funny)
DRM Collector: Bring out yer dead.
Wal-Mart: Here's one.
DRM Collector: That'll be seventy-nine cents.
DRM'ed WMA File: I'm not dead.
DRM Collector: What?
Wal-Mart: Nothing. There's your seventy-nine cents.
DRM'ed WMA File: I'm not dead!
DRM Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Wal-Mart: Yes he is.
DRM'ed WMA File: I'm not!
DRM Collector: He isn't.
Wal-Mart: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
DRM'ed WMA File: I'm getting better.
Wal-Mart: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
DRM Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
DRM'ed WMA File: I don't want to go on the cart.
Wal-Mart: Oh, don't be such a baby.
DRM Collector: I can't take him.
DRM'ed WMA File: I feel fine.
Wal-Mart: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can't.
Wal-Mart: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
DRM Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine thousand music files today.
Wal-Mart: Well, when's your next round?
DRM Collector: Thursday.
DRM'ed WMA File: I think I'll go for a walk.
Wal-Mart: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
DRM'ed WMA File: I feel happy! I feel happy!
[the DRM Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the DRM'ed WMA File with his a whack of his club]
Wal-Mart: Ah, thank you very much.
DRM Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Wal-Mart: Right.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I wish to register a complaint...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see iTunes and FairPlay going anywhere anytime soon. Hell, even after their spat earlier in the year when NBC moved to Amazon after Apple said no to their pricing scheme is now back on iTunes. But then again, I've said Apple got it right years ago. Offers some kind of production the media companies want, yet once I download it, I am free do whatever I want, like burning to CD's, installing and playing on a number of PC's/MP3 players, etc. without a lot of hassles. In the end, consumers don't min
Re:DRM is dead (Score:5, Informative)
I only bumped into FairPlay two times.
The first is when I tried to move a DRM'ed AAC file to an old Win98SE laptop (so I simply went and got the same tune as an MP3 file from P2P, since I had already paid for the tune).
The second is when I tried to play a rented movie from another computer. Turns out, you can't watch the movie from another computer, it has to be on the one you rented the movie from (even if the other computer is in your list of 5 allowed computers). I could have moved the movie to my AppleTV or my iPod touch, but I needed to watch it on my laptop. It's annoying that rented movies don't have the same limitations as purchased ones.
Parent
Re:DRM is dead (Score:5, Informative)
Parent