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Thursday, July 24, 2008

You Bought Music? Sucker!

Yahoo! Music is closing it's store and because the music files sold through it were shackled with Digital Rights Management (DRM) all the tunes people thought they bought? Turns out it's more like they rented 'em. At some point after Y! shuts down the servers that authenticate the purchases, purchasers/renters/suckers will no longer be able to play the files they payed for on their computers. The announced shut down date is September 30th, 2008. Files will continue to work on the computer on which they were purchased after that date -- at least until the hard drive fails, or the operating system is changed.

Microsoft made a similar move earlier this year when it announced that the Microsoft Music Network would be shuttered.

The same is true for folks who "bought" music through other now-defunct online music stores like RealNetworks, Virgin, Sony Connect, Liquid Audio, and I'm sure others as well. This is yet one more way (in a long line of ways including price-fixing CDs in the 1990s) that the music industry continues to beg music consumers to steal music rather than pay for it.

Online retailers including Yahoo! Music advocated for DRM-free files which wouldn't be "expiring" due to stores closing their doors, but the once all-powerful but forever clueless record industry (aka the Major Labels, aka the RIAA) overruled them and forced their retail partners to cripple the product with DRM.

Nice going, guys!

Read more, including Yahoo! Music's message to customers, here.

1 comment:

Kimo C said...

Outrageous