Won't playforsure
From The Technologizer:
It’s DRM deja vu all over again. Yet another major purveyor of copy-protected media has alerted the customers that purchased downloads from it that it’s shutting down its DRM servers, thereby crippling the stuff those customers bought. This time it’s Walmart.com and it joins Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo in what’s becoming a really predictable tradition of handling the situation poorly.
Wal-Mart, which has shifted its site’s music store to DRM-free MP3s (good), sent a e-mail to purchasers of its earlier downloads wrapped in Microsoft DRM advising them that it will shut down the DRM server as of October 9th. Once it’s done that, the tunes can no longer be transferred to new computers or devices; Wal-Mart suggests that customers burn CDs to prevent the music from becoming unusable, long-term.
This is the single biggest flaw wih DRM: access to music that individuals have purchased can be restricted by the retailer years after the sale. No one would stand for it if Wal Mart executives showed up at your door and took your CD collection back three years after you bought it, but doing the digital equivalant seems to be a-okay.
Wal-Mart.com's move to shut down its DRM servers without doing anything for its customers is garbage, plain and simple.
Check out the full story here.
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Apple is already selling DRM-free music through iTunes, which is a key step in getting rid of this draconian digital shackles.
I think if Apple ever abandoned DRM, it would find a way to unlock purchased music for users, which is what Wal-Mart should do in its case.