MSN + DRM = MIA

If you're one of the few who downloaded music from MSN Music, which Microsoft shuttered shortly after launching its Zune initiative, then you have until Aug. 31 to get that music onto the five devices you're allowed to put it on. After that date, Microsoft is shuttering the DRM servers used with the service, and any further transfers will render the songs unplayable.

Know your rights. They are your rights.

This is the inevitable last step in a transition that began when Microsoft killed its old PlaysForSure initiative. Why keep paying to maintain a service that's no longer offered, and runs counter to the current strategy? And I believe MSN manager Rob Bennett when he says that Microsoft was compelled to add DRM to songs on MSN Music--that's what labels demanded from legal download services at that time.

At the same time, Microsoft isn't totally innocent here. DRM was a big part of Microsoft's pitch for the Windows Media platform, and the company had a whole product team devoted to researching, developing, and updating DRM. Microsoft tried to sell content owners on the idea that Windows Media DRM was much more flexible than its competitors, allowing business scenarios like subscription-based content being transferred to devices (stop paying, the songs stop working on all your devices) and various rental models (like content expiring after a certain time period or number of plays). The laughable part: Microsoft tried to portray these scenarios as offering more consumer choice.

No. DRM is and always has been about about restricting choice. In fact, the whole notion of having "rights" to music you purchase is completely backwards--digital rights management should have been called digital restriction management. So for all of you buying restricted content from iTunes or the Zune Marketplace or anywhere else, let this serve as a warning: the provider or distributor of that content can unilaterally change your "rights" to it at any time. If you've invested a lot in DRM-protected music, burn it to audio CDs and then re-rip those CDs into MP3 files. Better yet, buy it in a non-protected format--like vinyl, audio CD, or MP3--in the first place.

[dascha1]

Personally, those letters meant something but different to me. As-was an engineer and co-producer for the MIA label (= Music Industry Association) at JMU decades ago. We worked quite a bit with folks in Nashville. Ironically their President asked me to come back to speak on career opps this month. Told them I was resurfacing things for medical software and accessibility these days instead. A great town, and good voice recognition there to boot!

More info:

http://musicindustryassociation.org

[streamOG]

Matt,

I know that you live off page views to this site and obviously CNet is a big MS-Hate shop.

However, when you wrote:

"So for all of you buying restricted content from iTunes or the Zune Marketplace or anywhere else, let this serve as a warning: the provider or distributor of that content can unilaterally change your "rights" to it at any time."

you really stepped over the line denoting true journalism and put yourself in the muckraking category. Come on Matt. That statement is not only an attempt to create fear and hype around DRM but it also a flat out lie.

Your statement implies that Zune or iTunes or MSN Music users are being duped at large using DRM. Nothing MSN Music has done is uncovered in their user agreement. All of their customers have access to this agreement. MSN Music went out of business. They didn't change the "rights" to the music. They are no being allowed by the record labels to issue licenses to content after they are out of business.

This is an unfortunate situation don't falsely paint it as one where consumers were mislead. Don't try to float the factually unsupported story that users at large are being misled.

Our industry deserves better.

Regards,

Christopher Levy, CEO
BuyDRM
[e-mail]

[QuetzalcoatlUSA]

Shame on Matt for trying to give DRM a bad name! For SHAME! It's true, don't blame it on DRM. Blame it on the record companies who insist on it. Nevermind I can buy their newest release on CD for the same price as iTunes and rip it at 44.1 kHz. If I want the convenience of downloading on the spot, I'm entitled to compressed, DRM-chained files - which APPARENTLY will have no real use after Apple Music Store goes out of business. Or whomever took my money goes out of business. That's what you DRM lovers don't get: people want to own music. Not rent it. I bought Eagles Greatest Hits and Dark Side of the Moon on LP, 8 Track, Cassette, CD, and now I get to rent it from you till your failed business model goes belly-up and then what? Too bad for me? No thanks. You make money off the blood sweat and tears of artists. They didn't make money under the old regime. They won't make any money in the new regime. Unless they are the flavor of the week.

[dwayne hoobler]

"the notion of rights is completely backwards"- spoken like a true neophyte, just out of college, with socialist stars in their eyes. all media should be free, i should be able to walk into a restaurant i ate at last year - sit down and eat a steak- 4free.

when folk buy music online, it would help if they read the licensing agreement, instead of crying like biches when the realize they're not actually buying songs- but instead licensing the use of them. if you were buying it, you would be free to resell it, use it commercially to make money, play it on any device, ever, anywhere for ever and ever.

this wasn't the case for physical media like CD's and DVD's and it is not the case for digital media.

this author needs to grow up, shave the fuzz off his chin and start to understand that the internet is available for one reason- as a direct sales channel- nothing more, nothing less. the fact that most folk think they use the internet is funny; the internet uses you.

the anti-DRM haters out there are a noisy minority kids who have never made a dollar from/on the interweb in their lives. they exist in some ****** sub scholastic backwater eddy, casting feather light stones into a pool too deep for them to see the bottom.

CNET is overrun with blatant ignorance and misinformation- reading twaddle like this is like watching 5 year old autistic kids playing soccer...pathetic but kind of funny at the same time. What would these monkeys have to write about if they were not being negative pissy prancing proletariats?

[MattRosoff]

Dwayne, I never said that all media should be free. Users pay for downloads. If those downloads are protected with DRM, users are more restricted in what they can do with them than if they purchase digital music in other fashions--like MP3 files or audio CDs. Microsoft absolutely had the right to do what they did. Buyer beware is all I'm saying.

And to both of you: licensing agreements are the last refuge of a scoundrel. Most normal commercial transactions don't require them--I buy a CD, a lawn chair, or a steak dinner, there's no licensing agreement required. Apart from huge potentially high-risk exchanges, like houses, the only time a vendor needs an explicit contract with a purchaser is when there's something that benefits the vendor that the end-user wouldn't normally expect in a commercial transaction.

That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

[Tertius]

Well I, for one, don't feel mislead at all. Years ago when I wanted to retire my overly spammed MSN email address, I was informed that deleting the email address would also invalidate my MSN music purchases made it - even though my new email address was going to be using the same parent account, billing info, etc. DRM licenses were non-transferrable even from the consumer to himself.

When MS released WMP 11 and announced that licensees would no longer be able to backup their licenses, I stongly suspected we were heading down this road. LESS THAN 30 DAYS LATER Microsoft released Zune and announced they were leaving the Playsforsure group, WMP and Zune were incompatible, and I promptly stripped the DRM off of what purchases I hadn't legally burned to CD.

No idealist socialism here. I simply fail to accept that consumer right of ownership has done a 180 simply because of medium used in the transaction. I can accept that I merely a licensee of the software I've shelled out money for even though 1st year law students can see the inequity of such contracts, but my hackles rise each time I must prove my software is "genuine" just so I can patch a flaw. I have yet to see the statute that abrogates the consumer's right to "fair use" because it was easier to buy and download a CD instead of drive down to the mall and buy it.

MS may simply be the middleman; the messenger we shouldn't kill, but this sows the seeds for a whole new crop of audio pirates

[streamOG]

And you are wrong Matt. Go read the terms on every CD you buy. You are agreeing to a license whether you have read it or not. There are benefits to having music in digital format that are unseen to the consumer or just not pointed out here based on what I see. Again we are talking about such a small number of tracks from so long ago that it's hard to believe this is news other than to drive banner ad impressions so CNet can pay the bills.