Wal-Mart Ditches DRM, Keeps Censorship 455
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.'"
rights?? censorship?? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Censorship"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hurrah for dropping DRM though. Be interesting to see how long this will last and if there is any repercussion. One nice thing about Walmart is that it's big enough to just smile give the bird to the RIAA.
Apples and Oranges (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Worthless store (Score:5, Insightful)
As a store that is owned by someone(s), managed by someone(s), they have the right to decide what it is that they will and wont sell. Its ashame that our society doesn't care that these are not the true songs that were released, but
1) Walmart has the Marketshare
2) Record Companies want to be in those locations
3) Record Companies bend to walmart.
Its not like they dont have a choice. And obviously its what many people want. If you want to call something worthless, call the Artist that allows their intellectual property (which they have most likely sold to the Label) to be modified from its orig. artistic form, Assuming they arent just out for money as well.
Re:Is is disclosed? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do find it a little silly that they worry about "bad" words but sell alcohol, tobacco, and guns.
I find tobacco a lot more offensive and family unfriendly than most bad words.
Value Add (Score:5, Insightful)
The important distinction is that, in this case, censorship adds value for some consumers, while DRM does not.
Re:edited only... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why should *every* song say "fuck"? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, oddly sanitized versions of 'reality' without obscenity are a specialty market.
Thankfully those who get all hot and bothered by an arbitrarily-judged "offensive" word are a dying breed.
Re:rights?? censorship?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:edited only... (Score:3, Insightful)
Cost for Quality? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:rights?? censorship?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Customer's cognizence of DRM is growing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Given no direct benefit but only impediments for customers with WMA or DRM, they will attach negative connotations to DRM systems. As long as this negative connotation is implanted long enough, they will come to expect that things should only get better over time, and that WMA and DRM will eventually go away.
In this manner, the societally expected norm will change, and the anti-DRM side will win the war of minds.
Re:rights?? censorship?? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just not unconstitutional censorship, or censorship which impinges on your rights. This is not to say that this manner of censorship is any more or less ethical or moral (although they clearly have less authority over us as individuals comapred to the government) nor that we as the affected group should be any more or less outraged by the censorship. It is simply not illegal for the RIAA to produce such tracks and Wal-mart to sell such albums, and, indeed, they have the right to do so.
Re:rights?? censorship?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What I don't understand. . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Google found this about the gun sales: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,191818,00.htm
If they felt that offering non-edited music would increase profits, they probably would do so.
At least that's what I'd do if I were running WalMart...
Re:rights?? censorship?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Censorship is censorship. The government doesn't necessarily have to be involved.
If a private organization doesn't want to sell you a particular item, that has nothing to do with the first amendment.
The first amendment is irrelevant here, and nobody even mentioned it, so I don't know why you brought it up. And just because something is legal, doesn't mean I have to approve of it.
It seems particularly ludicrous to complain about this at a time when there are so many real and horrible civil liberties problems in the U.S., e.g., the attorney general declaring that there is no right to habeas corpus in the constitution.
So in other words, until we get an AG that actually respects the Constitution, we can't complain about all the other petty bullshit that goes on around us? That might take a while.
Seeing as how the OP said "fuck" in his title... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seeing as how he had the word "fuck" in his title, I don't think he was going on about its offensiveness as a word so much as its over-use. I think his complaint was that a lot of fucking people don't seem to fucking realize that it's possible to have a fucking song without fucking swear words.
That said, I'd agree that you're unfortunately right that it's not a specialty market.
Re:Worthless store (Score:1, Insightful)
Hey everybody! (Score:5, Insightful)
My local adult bookstore doesn't sell the Bible! That's Censorship! Those Nazis!
My local country radio station refuses to play "Tooling for Anus" by The Meatmen! That's Censorship! Those Nazis!
And on and on...
Can we get over this "Store X sells items that are profitable since they're desirable to their target customer" and stop calling it censorship for once and for all? Because a business uses their legal right to choose what they do and do not sell hardly fits into the definition of censorship. On the most technical level, yes. But the word has long overgrown it's Webster dictionary definition in modern society.
Re:Worthless store (Score:5, Insightful)
Their album censorship is nuts. I've known about since I saw a piece on TV about Rob Zombie's "Hellbilly Deluxe" and it played the regular version, and the WalMart version.
Of course what's interesting is they do this with Parental Advisory stuff. The recent Nine Inch Nails album "Year Zero" has no such label on it, despite having quite a few incidences of the F word on it. I wonder if that got past them?
WalMart are considerably evil. But for many, they are an evil necessity.
Re:Is is disclosed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Guns. Well guns to kill lots of people and again if you are going to not sell a product based on it danger factor then guns would be on that list.
Tobacco is just evil. Selling it is evil and the tobacco companies are just evil. I have watched two friends die from lung cancer that was probably caused by tobacco.
So yes I find it as dumb for Wal-Mart to not carry records with parental warnings as I do for a town to outlaw topless bars when their are hookers on the main street.
Yea you probably wouldn't want to shop at a store I ran since I wouldn't carry alcohol, tobacco, or firearms.
Re:It is censorship. (Score:3, Insightful)
So, yes, what Walmart does is in fact censorship of the things they sell in their stores...
No, even by the definition you provided, it is not censorship. Walmart isn't suppressing, deleting, or, in any way, preventing the record companies from providing their product to the masses. They simply aren't assisting them and they have no requirement to do so. There is a substantial difference.
I got rights! (Score:5, Insightful)
I got rights! On one side of the street is a Rasputin's Music. On the other is the Evil Rapacious Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart doesn't sell CDs with vulgar lyrics, Rasputin's does. This is censorship! My rights are being violated! I am being oppressed because I have to walk across the street to buy an albumn where someone says "fuck"! Think of the children!
Re:Hey everybody! (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again this is the classic case of people mistaking inconvenience for oppression.
WalMart has the right to pick and choose what they carry. Why is it if they don't choose to carry something that you like because of their own self-imposed moral standards that you feel like you're the one being put off?
Maybe you'd like it if WalMart could dictate what you have to buy from them?
They have the right to choose just as much as you do. It's not censorship in the modernly acceptable term.
I've noticed more and more how much people hate having other people exercise their right to choose if they're not choosing the most outrageous choices. Just another sign of the decline of civilization.
Re:Worthless store (Score:5, Insightful)
is this evil (as so many walmart haters like to label)? and dont say that chinese products are shit, there is some very high quality stuff coming out of china (despite the fear campaign the media is pushing)
putting people who barely make enough money to survive out of business:
maybe these people need to do something else to make a living if it is so bad. how about if I move into town and open a tiny store that takes away their customers? does that make me evil, or am i just another guy with a successful small business? how large does my business need to be in order to be classified as 'evil'?
being anti-union:
shutting down a store to curb what could be an epidemic in their organization? you know what unions do, right? they organize workers so that they can pressure the organization for more benefits/money/vacation/whatever, otherwise the workers dont work. whether this is necessary at walmart, i do not know, but i do understand entirely why walmart canned them: because that was the only way to handle it.
im not a regular walmart shopper. hell, there isnt even a walmart IN my town (closest one is 100 miles away), but there are some (not all of them, of course) shitty small businesses either running local rackets or offer little service/products because they can get away with it. a walmart (or any other nationwide store) would force these shops to either improve their service or get shut down. the small store has every advantage when walmart moves in on them. they have an existing client base, a reliable location (and if not, they should have fixed that long ago), prices that arent exorbitant (if its a good business), and hopefully a good reputation in the community. if walmart can pop into any town and knock some barely-functioning businesses out, then where is the real problem?
Re:Is is disclosed? (Score:2, Insightful)
I might shop at your store as long as it isn't your alcohol, tobacco and firearms store. Although the lack of product would keep my bill down.
Re:Worthless store (Score:2, Insightful)
Likewise they are selling music that's DRM free. This is a business decision because they believe that's what their customers want and they'll have more sales because of it. If you like your DRM with your music, you're free to purchase your music elsewhere. I really don't see a problem with what they're doing in either case.
I've Never Gotten Wal-Mart's Music Policies (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow that's okay to Wal-Mart.
Re:Is is disclosed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They ARE NOT CENSORING anything (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're refusing to sell certain products in your market segment for reasons other than purely business reasons (moral objections falls into this), then you're practicing a form of censorship. If you're refusing to sell those games because they're unpopular and you won't make a profit, that's a business decision. But if you're refusing to sell profitable games because you don't like them, that's a moral choice, and completely unrelated to business (and in fact can hurt your business). It probably doesn't matter much if your store is not a market leader, or some sort of niche player; no one really cares then, and will just go somewhere else. But when a huge corporation which is a market leader does it, its effects are much more noticeable and up for debate.
Similarly, when FOX news refuses to report on certain events because of their political bias, that's censorship; it's not just "reporting choice". Corporations can censor just like any group which has power. The main difference is that it's fully legal in most cases, for good reason (private entities/people should be able to do what they want within reason). But it's also fully legal for people to bitch and complain and bash those corporations in public for doing so. In the end, the consumers will make the ultimate choice with their wallets.
Re:Worthless store (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:edited only... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Worthless store (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Worthless store (Score:3, Insightful)
Wal-Mart didn't with-hold consent for a union, it simply said we will not operate a business in an area likely to have a union. Since wal-Mart expected a union to form, it shut down that store. It is entirely within the law for Wal-Mart to close a location of its own free will. That is capitalism at work.
Socialism would say that the state determines where a business must operate and attaches conditions to that order. The state would force a business to spend its money to open a store at a specific location, and then force the business to operate under the state's rules for tax rates, employment conditions, etc.
So if every area has a union, Wal-Mart will close down entirely? I agree that businesses shouldn't be forced to operate in a certain area if they don't want to, and they aren't where I live. But on the other hand, in my country (Sweden), there are practically no areas without unions, so if Wal-Mart cannot accept them, well, they'd have to find another country to do business in.
The point is that Wal-Mart (or anyone else) should not be treated with silk gloves. That they see a business opportunity in a certain area does not mean that the population and government should accept whatever conditions (e.g. no unions) they try to impose. If Wal-Mart cannot accept that, it just shows that their business case probably wasn't very strong anyway. The population won't miss Wal-Mart if they stay out of an area, as other businesses will gladly step in and take their place.