Interview: Microsoft's Rob Bennett defends DRM decision
Rob Bennett knew people were going to be angry.
Bennett is the Microsoft executive who notified former customers of the now defunct MSN Music service on Tuesday that the company would no longer issue DRM keys for their songs after August 31. This means that, while former customers can listen to their music on authorized computers for as long as the hardware lasts, they won't be able to transfer songs to a new PC after that deadline.
In an interview with CNET News.com, Bennett said that continuing to support the DRM keys was impractical, that the issue only affects a "small number" of people and that focusing exclusively on Zune was the best way to go. He also noted that it wasn't Microsoft's decision to wrap music into digital rights management.
The reason for shutting down the DRM-licensing servers was "every time there is an OS upgrade, the DRM equation gets complex very quickly," said Bennett, general manager of entertainment, video, and sports for MSN. "Every time, you saw support issues. People would call in because they couldn't download licenses. We had to write new code, new configurations each time...We really believe that, going forward, the best thing to do is focus exclusively on Zune."
Microsoft shut down MSN Music in November 2006, following a failed effort to turn the site into a legitimate iTunes challenger. Redmond threw its resources behind the Zune digital music player and its music store, Marketplace.
For the past 18 months, Microsoft has continued to enable former customers of MSN Music to move their song libraries to new computers. Discontinuing that service has been widely criticized. Critics have long said that DRM was a means to control legally purchased music at the expense of consumers. To them, the current situation with MSN proves it.
Bennett defended Microsoft. He said the company never wanted DRM on its songs.
"Had we had the ability to deliver DRM-free tracks at the time, we absolutely would have done that," Bennett said. "We talked to the labels at the time about that. As a company, we have continued to push for this. Zune has a subset in their catalog of DRM-free MP3s. Now, the industry is making progress. The labels are understanding the downside of DRM when its used the way they wanted to use it, they end up punishing the users who bought music legally more than those who want to circumvent the system."
Bennett added that Microsoft believes in protecting intellectual property, but the company also wants people to enjoy their media without unreasonable restrictions.
"No one ever foresaw being in this situation," Bennett said. "It's not something we like to do. We want to make it easy and as painless for our customers as possible. We really feel, in the long term, what's best for people who want to buy music from Microsoft is to move to Zune."
Bennett said that former MSN Music customers can back up their songs by burning them to CDs. But what about the loss of sound quality should they decide to rerip the music?
"We (delivered) music at 160 kbps," Bennett said. "In my personal (experience), you're not going to lose that much fidelity."
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
have many customers. Given this, why have the elected to face a
public backlash that anyone could have seen coming rather than
doing one of the following:
1) Provide financial compensation for the cost that users will
need to incur to re-purchase their music from another store.
2) Sort out a deal with another online music vendor that would
enable MSN Music customers to download the tracks they had
bought from the other vendor.
Either option would have been pretty cheap and they'd have
avoided the bad PR. On the contrary, this would have generated
some good PR, and that's something that seems to be in short
supply for Microsoft these days. While Balmer can jump around
a stage shouting "Developers", it appears clear that Microsoft
doesn't care about its customers unless they are using the
current flavours of the week.
Rob shouldn't have to defend something to non-customers that his customers knew about almost a year ago.
MSN Music has been dead for some time and has been sending customers to Zune. That's a fact jack.
Refunds?? for what? For following the agreement the customer signed when they joined the service. I don't think so.
"I hate [Microsoft] and everything they stand for"
The blame truly lies with the music lables who insist on selling DRM songs. And now in an attempt to punish Apple they are providing DRM-free songs to everyone but them.
In part because they wanted to control DRM and if they secured the monopoly in it it would be hell to pay for the competitors....
--
Example.
Microsoft Media Player shreds your rights
By Charlie Demerjian: Thursday, 21 September 2006, 10:08 AM
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2006/09/21/microsoft-media-player-shreds-your-rights
THINK DRM WAS bad already? Think I was joking when I said the plan was to start with barely tolerable incursions on your rights, then turn the thumbscrews? Welcome to Windows Media Player 11, and the rights get chipped away a lot more. Get used to the feeling, if you buy DRM infected media, you will only have this happen with increasing rapidity. [http:// . . . |http:// . . . ]
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Next time you try posting something that is an out and out lie, don't expect to get away with it.
You mindless MS bashing zealots should really take a little time to at least get an overview of what you are talking about.
Windows Media Player 11 can create unencumbered MP3/WMA files if YOU choose. The only DRM is brought (or bought) by you, the user.
If they don't issue that, expect to see BOATLOADS of lawsuits against them when people realize that their music cannot be played anymore when they switch/upgrade their computers.
But Microsoft should have offered refunds, because I'm pretty sure there is going to be a class action lawsuit.
I bought a copy of XP pro from school in my last year of college. Strangely enough it came with one of those keys. I've never had to activate it. Right after install if you run the activation program from command prompt it will tell you it is already activated. I could always go back to using that.
It's fairly easy to break the DRM anyway. Illegal yes, but I'd like to see MS haul people into court for breaking DRM so they could use their own product. Possible, but it wouldn't paint MS in any better light.
Zune is far from some lousy iPod and don't be such a schmuck. The new Zunes are actually pretty useful and the new Zune experiences coming out this year will increase the types of devices providing access to the Zune experience.
Zune, like iTunes, allows burns if the label allowed it and allow transfers to devices and PCs if the label allowed it.
Zune is not going away but expanding into more of an experience with a much larger scope. Don't be so base in your accusations in public unless you are going to back it with meaningful facts people can make rational business decisions around.
If you had a bad support experience do something about it. Surely you are not so unable to pick up the phone or post a good email to their support team?
Bull! Bull$h!t. When DRM first came out I remember tons of posts from people saying that this would happen. People would lose their libraries of music under various conditions.
No one foresaw it? Sure they did, but like usual MicroShaft and the music industry doesn't care what the fans want, only how they can monetize a product and push that product. They don't care about taking care of customers.
If they cared about taking care of customers then they would release the specs on their DRM used in those files... I'm sure someone out there would be glad to write a program that strips the DRM from those files.
This is exactly why I will never purchase a downloadable music file if it contains DRM. I am also not very likely to buy a non-DRM file when the prices are around the $1 per track price point. If I can buy 3 or 4 songs for a hard earned dollar, then I would gladly do it. For I rip my own cds and record tracks off the satellite radio.
know it. If you 'buy' something that means the mothership
doesn't get to turn you off when it decides to change its
business model.
At least Google Video had the decency to refund people's money
when they decided to drop their support of DRM.
For Bennett to try to weasel out of responsibility by claiming "its
not our fault, its the record companies who forced us to do this"
is a totally spineless thing to do. As far as I 'm concerned they
made a deal with the devil so now they can suffer the
consequences.
- by searchenginetopic February 6, 2010 8:56 AM PST
- There are lots of information about Microsoft on the net.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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