Reason #9,358 For Not Buying DRM'd Music: Wal-Mart Shuts Down DRM Servers

"Wal-Mart, on the other hand, just told people they have a week to burn their music to a CD and re-rip it -- or they lose it entirely."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080929/0004132388.shtml

 

Well on the bright side, it looks like the end of DRM'd music. People who bought thousands of tracks from Walmart are in a tough position of course, they should be given more time. But the DRM was always a flawed way of enforcing copyrights simply from the point of view that it never really worked the way it should have. Anyone who lost a harddrive or motherboard on their computer knows what I mean. The DRM "migration" never worked at all for me.

 

Go figure.........It's Wally's World (Walmart).Wal-Mart has never really been a consumer-conscious company.

I have never stepped into Wally's World for the past 10 years. I'll pay higher prices, drive further.....screw Walmart.

 

Just a slight correction, if you have good licenses now, you could burn and rip after the deadline. Basically if your hard drive quit the day after the deadline, your licenses are gone and so is your music, but as long as your hardware that existed when the licenses were acquired functions you should be OK. Not a gamble I'd take, however.

 

"A couple weeks back, we noted with surprise Wal-Mart's decision to turn off its DRM servers with little warning. After all, both Yahoo and Microsoft had tried to do the same thing, but eventually backed down in front of rather public backlash from customers. It's hard to believe that no one in charge of Wal-Mart's music offering was aware of that. But, still, the company tried to shut down the DRM servers. And, surprise, surprise, there was widespread backlash. So, not surprisingly, Wal-Mart has backed down and promised to keep the DRM servers running for the time being."
http://techdirt.com/articles/20081010/0020522511.shtml