Wal-Mart reverses policy on DRM?

New reports say Wal-Mart may have reversed its policy on digital rights management, and will keep servers online for the near future.

Wal-Mart had sent an e-mail to consumers last month that, starting October 9, it would no longer assist with digital rights management issues for protected files purchased from Walmart.com.

That means that anyone who had those music files would still be able to access them on the devices or computers they reside on, but wouldn't be able to transfer them to new devices.

Yahoo and Microsoft had announced similar plans when shuttering their DRM programs, but both companies backtracked after sharp criticism.

Now, reports say Wal-Mart has told consumers that it, too, will continue to support the DRM-protected music.

Engadget has posted an e-mail that Wal-Mart reportedly sent to music customers informing them that "we have decided to maintain our digital rights management (DRM) servers for the present time," and that their customer service team "will continue to assist with DRM issues for protected windows media audio (WMA) files purchased from Walmart.com."

A spokesman for Wal-Mart could not immediately be reached for comment.

[msjonker]

What a no-brainer... How much does it really cost to keep them running vs. how many people will be pissed off and refrain from making more purchases from Wal-Mart. Who is running these companies anyway?

[close5828]

I don't hate Wal*Mart, but if they had shut those servers down it would have really done the customer a huge disservice.

[thelemurking]

This is why DRM is Digitally Retarded Management.

That is why I won't buy any music that is DRM, that includes iTunes! I'd much rather buy a used CD off of Half.com and rip it myself and know that I will have something to fall back on just in case.

[Dalkorian]

Exactly, well put. These retail folk are acting like drug dealers, threatening to take away the supply to drive up demand. Problem is they don't seem to realize that DRM isn't a drug that we want, it doesn't make us feel good.

That doesn't mean that we can't apply the old '80s saying - JUST SAY NO!

I *never* have downloaded (let alone purchased) any music with DRM attached and never will. It's a sucker play, just like subscription music.

[k2dave]

I think this is another story of the DRM chickens coming home to roost. In addition to having to provide 'eternal' support, there is the initial cost of implementing such a system. Companies who bough into DRM have really sold themselves into a form of corporate bondage for short term gain. Unfortunately the cost of DRM, which IMHO will far outstip the profit of selling the songs (in one form or another), will be eventually born by the consumers.

Good story. One wonders if both corporations and consumers are finally catching on that the only people who "get" anything out of being enslaved to DRM are the IP holders?

[hawkeyeaz1]

Ah, now 3 large companies know how wonderful DRM is, how it locks the customer in, and is a undispensible/unremovable burden on the seller for life. Like cancer.

Yeah, it's a wonderful thing. Now for the entertainment industries to realize they are killing everything and start selling it w/o DRM even more (i.e. only).

[JBSimmons]

Now we can all look to Amazon for it's DRM-less music formats. I do tend to think that the way it is going now, 128Kbps cuts are rapidly ditching DRM, while the higher 192Kbps - 320Kbps, and even WAV files will keep it around for a while. The iPod nano has a very aggressive stripping format than regular iPods before it (i.e ******** sound) to fit on the smaller memory available. This has been no secret. Apple is still pretty good with it's 5 unit device limit on DRM. It was a design done right, from the start vs. a single unit only DRM policy. Ideally, in the distant future, when they finally come out with it on mini-SD chips, with the DRM counter in the chip and the player (which will register the S/N of the chip) will not subtract from the DRM count unless the device is corrupted, in which it will restore it, at no cost or DRM count to the user, meanwhile, on devices that do not have the S/N of the chip, would load it and subtract the DRM count in the chip by 1. This is a very elegant solution - freeing up users from the tyranny of the sellers (who may go out of business at a future date or stop selling DRM items which require an active DRM server) and put the responsibility on the buyer. The buyer has x number of copies which he can do whatever he wants, but notices that the DRM count cannot be increased. Defective units can ony be replaced with the full amount of DRM counts as a new one. Yes, there will be a lot of mini-SD chips around, but remember - we of the 1960's generation had hundreds of 45's, 33's, and cassettes. What difference does this make? We couldn't dupe records, but once tape became available, the pre-recorded ones sounded a heck of a lot better than those home recorded ones.