The Great "legal Download" DRM Rip-Off - Thanks For the Cash Suckers !!!

[GhostShip]

It seems yet another organisation that sold music with DRM embedded in it is to cease operating the server that allows you to listen to the music, so in essence the 99C download to purchase the track means you paid for fresh air as you,ll never be able to listen to it again.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/26/walmart-shutting-dow.html

Hey suckers! Did you buy DRM music from Wal*Mart instead of downloading MP3s for free from the P2P networks? Well, they're repaying your honesty by taking away your music. Unless you go through a bunch of hoops (that you may never find out about, if you've changed email addresses or if you're not a very technical person), your music will no longer be playable after October 9th.
But don't worry, this will never ever happen to all those other DRM companies -- unlike little fly-by-night mom-and-pop operations like Wal*Mart, the DRM companies are rock-ribbed veterans of commerce and industry, sure to be here for a thousand years.

Boy, the entertainment industry sure makes a good case for ripping them off, huh? Buy your media and risk having it confiscated by a DRM-server shutdown. Take it for free and keep it forever.

This of course is not the first or even the second time honest consumers have been ripped off like this, only this week we saw this

http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-855.html

Yahoo Music Unlimited is reminding its users this week that it is shutting its doors by the end of the month. The company will also turn off its DRM licensing servers, which means that users won't be able to acquire any new licenses for the Windows Media DRMed downloads they "bought" for 99 cents each. From the email sent to customers:

"Purchased music that you downloaded to authorized computers or devices will continue to play on those devices, unless you upgrade your operating system. If you attempt to transfer purchased downloads to an additional or previously unauthorized computer or device, your music will not play on those new computers or devices."

It seems this is the ideal fiddle then , open up a music download store and sell crippled music to joe public who is doing his best to ensure artist get their 10 cents out of the 99c download and this is how that trust in the big corporate names is repaid

This of course was preceded by this in April this year

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080422-drm-sucks-redux-microsoft-to-nuke-msn-music-drm-keys.html

Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft's now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it's done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer.

I think you can all see the "caring corporations" lining up to make good on their closure of a service folks had already brought into by making legitimate purchases, lets face it this seems to be one of those pay-for-it-many-times rackets that the RIAA so love, now we know where they get the $1M+ to pay for Carys salary, off the backs of honest working folks, .
My view is Cory Doctorow has the right idea, don't buy into this rip off and if you must buy music make sures its from a garage sale or junk shop, you,ll at least then know that you wont be throwing your money into an ever hungry and selfish corporate pit.

[Cobra]

My oh my how times have changed.

When I was a kid, the only negative things that I heard about music sales were warning you not to buy tapes/CDs at dirt cheep from guys with card tables set up at the end of a mall parking lot. That still goes on today but you no longer hear warnings about it. People bought music and did with it whatever they wanted reguardless of what the actual laws are about copying and freely distributing.

Then the Internet was born, free distribution moved to a whole new level, and the music companies became furious claiming that sales dropped to where they could no longer afford to have their solid gold houses buffed on a daily basis.

And now, thanks to DRM, you no longer buy songs, you only rent them.

[MinersLantern]

Is this a surprise?
WallyWorld Used to be a great place to shop. Products (mostly) made in the US, plenty of open checkout registers, no crime and a large selection of goodies.
Now they insist that everything they sell simply Must be imported, Must be of inferior quality, and any 'customer' or 'sheep' as they call them, Must be forced to wait around in line for a minimim of one hour (just in case they get bored and suddenly decide to go running off to purchase that $1200 TV set they had always their eye on, which real people in the real world never do)
The entire scam has gone tits up since Sam died. At least then he had absolute, dictatorial power worldwide as to Walmarts policies. Disagree with Sam say hello to the unemployment line. That made Walmart grow by leaps and bounds with unbelievable success.
Now its Afu, like anything else that bases important decisions on being politically correct if everyone agrees, and even then as approved by some 'commitee' whos members lack the intellect to even set their own alarm clocks so they don't flash '12:00' forever without calling upon a 'specialist' to fix it for them.
Similar to the finacial meltdown now going on globally, and caused by the exact same attitude.
So is it really a surprise that they refuse to cover what (some) customers consider a deal? And no doub't would be nothing but pure profit for the company for decades to come?
Think about it.
These little monkeys will not even hire an inexperienced girl at minimum wage to open at least one register, beyond the usual One they have open at evening hours, even if there is 75 customers waiting to hand over their money and get out of there.
I guess a few thousand dollars per hour in sales doesn't justify paying someone 5 dollars an hour to make that go smoothly and quickly.
I predict Walmart is going to be history, and sooner than anyone would expect.