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.'"
edited only... (Score:4, Informative)
And worse yet, sometimes they edit out things that aren't offensive at all.
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And how did it start ?
Is it really the majority of US citizens who believe it does any good at all , or is there a wierd technical explanation to why we still have to live with this stupid "parental advisory" warning on the front of US CD's, and the beeps on American TV shows
I'm not trying to provoke any of you , and i believe most, if not all, readers of slashdot would prefer unsensored music and TV. I just don't understand the reasoning behind it !
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Re:edited only... (Score:5, Informative)
The mind boggles.
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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 profita
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This is a pure business decision - it's part of a marketing stratergy to portray themselves as familly friendly. Don't like it? Don't buy it. It's their business and they have the right to make this decision if they want.
censorship (Score:2)
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Re:censorship (Score:5, Informative)
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Is is disclosed? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Is is disclosed? (Score:4, Funny)
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:Is is disclosed? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The word you're looking for is "exacerbates."
You're welcome.
Re:Is is disclosed? (Score:4, Funny)
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I, um, download most of my music. I've found out lately that I've gotten old and really dislike any versions of songs other than the radio-edit. There were 4-5 songs that I like
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Suggested headline: (Score:5, Funny)
From the 'its-crap-anyways' dept.
censorship: US-centric? (Score:2)
rights?? censorship?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, it's when any third party does. You have a right to be a censor in your own home, as do most private entities. Wal-mart may have that right, but it is still being a censor, and it's perfectly accurate to call it that.
I'm so sick of the "it's only bad when government does it" argument.
Re:rights?? censorship?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:rights?? censorship?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are they making it absolutly clear which tracks they have altered? If not then they are at best being misleading about what they are selling. (Even if they take care to avoid selling anywhere which has laws requiring accurate descriptions of goods offered for sale.)
Re:rights?? censorship?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I have a right not to shop at Wal-Mart to buy my music. And I don't. I've avoided them for as long as I can remember when it comes to buying music. Wal-Mart has a right to not sell what they don't want to sell.
The silly part is that they DO sell R-rated movies. I saw Porky's for sale at Wal-Mart, and Slither -- the latter of which has more profanity than most non-rap albums, I'd wager.
Censorship != not selling (Score:2)
Wal-Mart may choose to not sell you CDs with certain lyrics, but they're sure not trying to prevent the distribution thereof elsewhere. If they were suing anyone who sold Parental Advisory materials, or lobbying for legislation outlawing it, or kneecapping anyone who bought it elsewhere, yes - but they're not; if Wal-Mart isn't selling what you want, you're free to buy i
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.
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"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)
Value Add (Score:5, Insightful)
The important distinction is that, in this case, censorship adds value for some consumers, while DRM does not.
Just shows Wal-Mart isn't all bad (Score:2, Troll)
Considering the type of music that typically has two versions, I can only assume that parts of it being removed can only be an improvement.
Wait a minute, I wonder if that CD of Beethoven Piano Sonatas I bought the other day from Wal-Mart was censored... *then* we would have something to complain about.
Sounds good to me if they are using artists I like (Score:2)
The technical specs look good though, and I think music companies need to see that people will buy DRM free music if it is offered. So, I'll probably try to find a few tracks to buy...
I'd buy that for a dollar. (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt all customers want any particular product or service. The more important question is whether or not enough want this product in order for it to be worth offering.
Speaking for myself, I do want this service. The absence of crude songs is completely irrelevant to me because I wouldn't want them anyway. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Cost for Quality? (Score:4, Insightful)
They are playing the wrong game... (Score:2, Interesting)
You will pay $10 or $15 a month to play all the music you want.
Last.FM is one of my best bets in this market too... personalized music stations, international hits, etc.. it's going to be a lot of fun to see the next few years. Personally I use Last.FM and Yahoo LaunchCast on a daily basis -- people ask me all the time how I fi
Very Competitive: Walmart wins 3 of 4 (Score:5, Interesting)
256kbp vs. 256kbp
"censored" vs. "non-censored"
94 cents vs #1.29
For those who care about the "clean" tracks, it's still 3 of 4.
Of course Apple still has the edge with the iPod community, and perhaps ease of use. But no one should be fooled: this is very good for the digital music marketplace.
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Then ask them if it will play AAC.
Truth is, most don't care. They just want it to work, and MP3 has way greater recognition out there than AAC does. The benefits of having better sound are negligible...and probably only applicable to the sorts of folks who spend time on websites like this one.
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Most of the rest of them will have no clue what formats their 'MP3 player' plays, but most of them do in fact support AAC. The older el-cheapo devices that didn't will mostly be in a drawer collecting dust. The tiny minority with an MP3-only device are likely to be less interested in (purchased) online music, since they figured out years ago that none of the major online music stores were selling something that woul
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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.
Is that true? (Score:2, Troll)
Amazing, they can poison our dogs and children no problem, but if somebody should utter the word "fuck" then Wal-Mart has a hissy fit.
It is bowlderized, not censored. (Score:5, Informative)
That dude thought the Holy Bible has sections too racy for children and young people and so he brought out an edited version.
Censorship is when the Govt uses its power to silence an expression. As others have noted, Walmart is not preventing the record companies from selling profanity laden songs in other places.
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By "the Holy Bible", you mean "The Works of Shakespeare"?
Did you even read your own link?
Wal-Mart Still Requires "Windows" (Score:3, Interesting)
If they're gonna start selling MP3 files, maybe they should first start by allowing web access to their download store to systems other than Windows.
so wal-mart censors songs (Score:2)
an entrepreneur would see a business opportunity
and me, a realist, would see that the entrepreneur has a better chance of changing the world, or walmart's opinion, than the activist does
All I can say is (Score:2)
Should I check this is OK with my parents?
Oblig Simpsons (Score:2)
Censorship as a barrier? (Score:2)
That's freedom for ya (Score:2)
Hey of you don't like it buy somewhere else.
While I don't agree with censorship and don't sanction it, I am not too worked up over not being sold music that blares on about "niggers" "'hoes" and "busting a cap in your ass".
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.
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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.
It's the Visible Minority (Score:2)
The vast majority of people likely don't want censored music, or, more likely, don't care if Wal*Mart is selling uncensoring music. However, there is a loud moralistic minority that annouces Wal*Mart boycotts etc. if they hear about something they don't like. The majority never chimes in with a counter-opinion, so the minority wins.
Another analog
Artists should fight back (Score:2)
I like what Nirvana did with Nevermind. Apparently some nut jobs were offended by seeing a naked baby in a swimming pool and they wanted the album cover censored. Kurt Cobain said "Sure, but only if there is a small stick over the baby's penis that says 'If this offends you, you are a closet pedophile.'" The cover remained intact.
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!
I've Never Gotten Wal-Mart's Music Policies (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow that's okay to Wal-Mart.
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.
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You can go elsewhere and get your music (I certainly do), but if you want to buy your music from Wal Mart, or have no choice in the matter (a small town where Wal Mart has run out the competition, and you don't trust online, for example), then you haven't a choice.
It's censorship only at Wal Mart, but it is still censorship.
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Good to know!
The do censor the music they sell in their stores, because they do control it, and choose not to sell it, when there is an audience for it.
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Ex: A telecom company stops a signal from being sent over the wires or air waves, but it is still recorded and distributed elsewise - is it censored?
Ex: A country blocks the distribution of a book within its borders, but it is still published and distributed in other contries - by your definition, it is not censorhip.
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But there is certainly a market for non-censored music - it's probably what keeps the FYE in business across the street from the walmart in a small city/large town that my family visits occasionally.
Just because they don't block the content outside of their stores, does not mean they aren't censoring. It's not as bad as a governmental censorship for example, but it is still a censorship - they could sell the unedited music if they wanted to, and could probably increa
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Selected music might be a value to some (Score:2)
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Well, whatever it is, I don't buy music, games or video there, and I won't, until or unless they quit doing it. It isn't as if there aren't better sources; anyone who doesn't chop out what the artist put on the media is a better source as far as I'm concerned.
government, corporation, and individual can do it (Score:5, Informative)
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.
censorship [thefreedictionary.com] - deleting parts of publications or correspondence or theatrical performances
censoring
deletion - the act of deleting something written or printed
Bowdlerism - censorship in the form of prudish expurgation
Comstockery - censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality
Not all censorship is equal [gilc.org], nor does all arise from government or external force.
censorship [answers.com], official prohibition or restriction of any type of expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order. It may be imposed by governmental authority, local or national, by a religious body, or occasionally by a powerful private group.
I don't know who taught you to think that it's not censorship when it's done for profit, but you were lied to. Censorship is done by whoever has the power to do it, no matter if the power used to do it is by nature political, capital or personal.
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: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?
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Socialism would say that the state determines where a business must operate and attaches conditions to that order. The state would force a
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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 ce
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What do you mean? Isn't it an opportunity for the town to have a better store with lower prices due to highly efficient union labor? HAHA!
BTW, that's not what happened according to the article that YOU linked. The store was already unionized. The union played chicken with its members livelihoods and lost. I really can't believe it doesn't happen more often.
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Because it makes money, and the customer won't notice that he was ripped off by getting a disc full of squeaks instead of what he wanted before he gets home anyway.
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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.
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.
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Until I moved into the city, I thought that it wasn't so bad that so many hip hop artists, particularly the popular ones, swore so much. Then I heard how the people who lived across the street from me, who immersed themselves in "hip hop culture," spoke. Every other word is the F bomb. They don't even need to be excited or angry to use it. And it's not just the parents, but the children as well. And they all seem to call each other the N word, even though it's about an equal split between caucasian, hispani
Amazon (Score:2)
Ever hear of Amazon.com? They'll sell you pretty much anything in print and ship it to your door in days, usually cheaper than just about anywhere else. If you've got a mailbox, the "there isn't one around here" argument doesn't fly.
Rather than regulating there offerings, we should split up the company to promote competition.
Rather than imposing your whiny will on others, go open a competing store. The whole point of this argument thread is that Wal
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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...
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Those are totally different things.
No I don't hunt, no I don't mind impolite words.
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Interesting.
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Yeah, God forbid that Walmart (as much as I do hate them) uses their legal right to pick and choose what they sell.
Let's come over your house and make some heavy handed decisions on what is right or what is hypocritical and start to force you to live by our definition of a good life. Let's see how fast you bitch.
I can't believe that people s
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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