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Can we see a problem with DRM?

It'll do no favors for walmart to give returns, especially after they lost so much...

It's funny the music companies still don't realize how screwed they are...

Sep 28, 08 - 09:51 am Comment from: MadMac

Can we see a problem with Microsoft?

Time to sue the Music biz for selling songs that dont work.

I give the music biz 5 years and they will be gone.

No Pity For the Straggling Idiots

Enjoy your crippled bullshit... you DESERVE IT!

mdn magic word: took; as in you took my fscking music away!

Sep 28, 08 - 10:01 am Comment from: TowerTone

It seems that if you buy music from anyone besides Apple (or maybe Amazon), in the end, you will get stiffed....

Sep 28, 08 - 10:11 am Comment from: MrMcLargeHuge

@TowerTone

You definitely won't get stiffed with Amazon, because there is no DRM.

You know, it is a shame I can't (in good conscience) buy music from amazon. I know that the music cartels are giving music drm free to amazon for half the price they sell to apple for in an attempt to break itunes solidarity on pricing and single song sales.

Amazon may seem like a good deal now, but if they do manage to take a significant share of the distribution they will cut apple off (for specific releases) and we will have $16.95 albums with no single song sales. It is what the cartels desperately want (back) and the itunes store (share of sales) is the only thing that stands between them.

At this point I would rather pay double at the itunes store.

Sep 28, 08 - 10:34 am Comment from: Sixvodkas

@ MrMcLargeHuge

What you do get with Amazon, however, is music encoded with a 15 year old CODEC.

MP4 (MP3's successor), used at the iTMS (with millions of DRM free tracks available) is where it's at today.

Sure we can all see a problem with DRM.

Flipside of the coin, burn the music and you now have portability. Its not the end of the world. If the DRM prevented putting the music on a CD, then it would be a totally different issue.

Sep 28, 08 - 11:10 am Comment from: neomonkey

Is it really necessary to burn songs to CDs? With OS X, it's a simple matter to use Wiretap, but aren't there any comparable Windows apps?

If they really had the interest of their customers in mind, they would offer a program to strip the DRM off the music.

They don't, so the paranoid side of me thinks that this is simply a scam to squeeze more sales, i.e. trick people into buying again.

Sep 28, 08 - 11:38 am Comment from: alansky

@Uncle Fester's cousin:

I agree with you. Music lovers have been paying through the nose for at least the last 50 years. The greedy bastards who profit from this arrangement are hopping mad and would do anything to force consumers to buy their over-priced "albums."

Sep 28, 08 - 11:43 am Comment from: Cubert

@ MrMcLargeHuge,

"You definitely won't get stiffed with Amazon, because there is no DRM"

use tunebite to remove all forms of drm on windows or wiretap on mac. My mdn magic word is trouble.

Sep 28, 08 - 01:04 pm Comment from: BC Kelly

Proud WalMart

(sung, sorta, to the tune of CCR's Proud Mary)



I bought some DRM songs at WalMart

Was pretty good deal just the other day

But now they're going away

My Britney songs won't play

WTF will I do when I hear them say


Buy More
Buy More
Buy More stuff at WalMart
Each and every day





BC

Sep 28, 08 - 01:05 pm Comment from: drmacnut

Let us all pray that our Mr Jobs / Apple is above doing this kind of thing at some point in the future. For the moment, I am undoubtedly with Uncle Fester's cousin, buying mainly from iTS (trustingly so).

I have tried Amazon's service, and find it to be very nice, although I still prefer the shopping experience of iTS and will usually pay the extra few cents/dollars for it.

Long Live FairPlay!

@ Uncle Fester's Cousin, Alansky -

Completely agree with your stance. While I've looked at Amazon's digital music selection, my digital music purchase dollars goes to Apple. Purchasing digital music is great for single songs or for just a few songs from a CD. If I'm interested in more than two or three songs from a CD, I'll opt for the physical CD and will rip the songs myself at a higher bit-rate. Plus a physical CD is a ready-made backup in case of HD failure. I do opt for used CD's when possible - usually from Amazon.

Peace.

Idea for new "Get a Mac" Ad.

(PC looks frustrated)
Mac: What's wrong?
PC: none of my music works anymore?
Mac: What?! Why is that?
PC: Well, I bought hundreds of tracks from a number of different stores, like Wal-Mart, Yahoo, Best Buy. And Now none of them work because of the stupid Windows DRM.
Mac: Wow that's frustrating. You know iTunes has the largest selection of music and over 500 Billion (sic) songs that are DRM free. That means that Even if Apple shuts down it's service, the songs will still play. The Zune Marketplace doesn't offer that.

Wal-Mart makes P.T. Barnum look honest.

This will only help Apple.

Should Apple offer WM's victims, er "customers", a way to exchange their crippled music for iTMS credits?

I am kinda surprised to see so far none of the popular web sites/advocate groups to expose more of the music cartels' evil intention of using Amazon as a tool to have leverage against Apple who is actually their savior, because for those of us who can understand the matter all know that would happen once Amazon sells enough mp3s: the greedy stupid cartels will pull their tunes off of iTunes store and go back to their old gimmick trying to force people to buy albums again, only then people would wish there would be billions of songs available on iTunes still. I personally only get tunes/vids either from iTunes or a visit to any of those bt sites, absolutely no Amazon or any other stores no matter how cheap they are there.

Sep 28, 08 - 03:47 pm Comment from: ken1w

> Should Apple offer WM's victims, er "customers", a way to exchange their crippled music for iTMS credits?

That's a good idea. Better yet, give iTunes for Windows a command to "convert" protected WMA files by offering to download the same iTunes Store songs for 30 cents (or whatever amount).

"iTunes has found the following protected WMA songs that you can upgrade to iTunes Store songs for $0.30 each. Please check the songs you want to upgrade and click the Upgrade button, or click the Cancel button to not accept this offer."

This would work in a similar way to the current iTunes Plus upgrade for songs you previous purchased.

Sep 28, 08 - 03:58 pm Comment from: ken1w

Replying to myself...

> Better yet, give iTunes for Windows a command to "convert" protected WMA files by offering to download the same iTunes Store songs for 30 cents

Actually, that would not work, unless Apple had a way to verify that the protected WMA files actually belonged to person wanting to convert to iTunes Store songs. So maybe Apple should just offer to "upgrade" at the full price, in which case this new iTunes feature would just be a way to generate more sales and make the transition to iTunes more convenient.

If you took 1 song, how large would the file be on MP3 vs. the MP4 version Apple uses.

Damn wyred guy, that was a long sentence!

Good article on the difference here: http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/index.html

Actually, that would not work, unless Apple had a way to verify that the protected WMA files actually belonged to person wanting to convert to iTunes Store songs.<i>

Fly Steve Jobs to Bentonville, and have him offer to take over the DRM operations, on the spot, completely free of charge to WM. WM can even have the server farm back after the transition.

As WM is all about saving a buck, I doubt they could resist this.

Once the DRM info is in Apple's hands, <i>then offer the users the chance to switch. Even extend the deadline a little, 11 days is a bit draconian.

try this again:

Actually, that would not work, unless Apple had a way to verify that the protected WMA files actually belonged to person wanting to convert to iTunes Store songs.

Fly Steve Jobs to Bentonville, and have him offer to take over the DRM operations, on the spot, completely free of charge to WM. WM can even have the server farm back after the transition.

As WM is all about saving a buck, I doubt they could resist this.

Once the DRM info is in Apple's hands, then offer the users the chance to switch. Even extend the deadline a little, 11 days is a bit draconian.

Sep 28, 08 - 06:00 pm Comment from: Connor MacBook

This only really affects about three people, right?

CMB
That's if you count that one guy in Canada who bought a red zune.

Do what i do.

Buy the physical Cd from half.com or ebay for fraction of cost. Rip. Burn. Then sell back to someone on those sites

I also have bought someone's entire cd collection on those black binders on ebay. Took me a few weeks sometimes to rip them all. When done, i sell the collection back on ebay. i usually get all my money back sometimes even more.

What! No bloodbath comments? What's wrong with you people?

What a shaft job. This is a big lesson for the consumer. I hope the message gets even further out.

LOL

Microsoft planed this from the beginning. They wanted to get rid of the DRM and now record companies are forced to sell music without the DRM because Microsoft demonstrated that the DRM won´t work

DRM magic word: clearly

WTF? How did that raspberry end up there? It should be ; and P?
Funny

Tiger,

Please see related article:
More blood on Apple iTunes Store’s play button: Wal-Mart pulls plug on movie download store - December 27, 2007

Sep 29, 08 - 07:56 am Comment from: Mr. Peabody

And since all of this stuff runs exclusively on Windows who's actually behind all of this...? You guessed it. For all of the bitching and moaning about Apple's DRM, at least they have a system where the customer doesn't get stiffed, even if iTMS goes belly-up.

Of course Wal-mart has to assume responsibility for listening to the MS minion-partners in the first place - but there you have it.

It's happening again! How many times to people have to be ripped off by these goofy DRM schemes before they finally see the light. Several years ago I bought several songs with DRM. The rest of my music is ripped from the CD's I purchase. Then I bought a new computer. I will give you one guess which songs I was not able to get onto my new computer. Thankfully they represent less than $10 worth of music. That's why I still buy CD's. I like having physical ownership of something. That is also why cloud computing makes me nervous.

Another reason not to rent music!

SUE SUE SUE and SUE.

Sep 29, 08 - 05:09 pm Comment from: DRM sucks

I love the DRM.