Comments on: Interview: Microsoft's Rob Bennett defends DRM decision

Microsoft exec says it was impractical to continue supporting MSN Music and that the company would have offered DRM-free songs had it been allowed to.

[MyRightEye]

Then you had better be issuing refunds

Or cop a lawsuit.

[kelmon]

Compensation or Migration

By Microsoft's own statement, the number of MSN Music didn't
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.

[streamOG]

This is not news to MSN Music customers but

it is a good story for CNet to drive page views which puts money in their pockets.

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.

[close5828]

If I may quote...

...Howard Dean, loosely.

"I hate [Microsoft] and everything they stand for"

[streamOG]

But it's ok for Apple to make the entire DRM Industry right?

so funny how emotional people get with Microsoft about the same practices that Apple employs.

[nmcphers]

What are you talking about?

They are not getting on Microsoft case because they use DRM. What Microsoft is doing is abandoning support for DRM music it sold. Where do you see Apple employing that? Yes, that's always a possibility in the future.
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.

[JCPayne]

LIES. Microsoft has-- been trying for a long time to get people to....

... choose their Windows Media Player over-- the MP3 format. So much soo they took away the ability to encode in MP3 format from Windows Media Player...

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:// . . . ]

--

[Leria]

Bullcrap and an obvious lie to anyone who uses WMP

Windows Media Player still has the ability to encode to the MP3 format, in Windows Media Player 10 and 11.

Next time you try posting something that is an out and out lie, don't expect to get away with it.

[catch23]

WMA isn't DRM

or doesn't have to be, just like AAC doesn't need FairPlay wrapped around 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.

[Leria]

Time for Microsoft to issue a DRM stripping device

For songs that have been bought off MSN Music.

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.

[DougDbug]

That would be "illegal"...

Removing the DRM would be a violation of their contract with the record companies.

But Microsoft should have offered refunds, because I'm pretty sure there is going to be a class action lawsuit.

[DrtyDogg]

It's called burn and rip.

always an option

[frankz00]

Steve Jobs was RIGHT once again...

And I smell a big stinky class action coming soon... It is time to accept "The Messiah" as your savior!

[streamOG]

Except that Steve Jobs is the biggest DRM provider in the world

You just don't get it. Apple never intended to drop DRM. That was all a ruse. They invented DRM in modern terms and they make money off of it. All they did was further fragment their competition who now have nothing to differentiate themselves and that is why they are all failures. Amazon's music store is a distant 8th place right now. Why? because consumers at large don't care about DRM.

[DougDbug]

Someday, the same thing will happen with WinXP

"I'm sorry, you can not re-install WinXP, because Microsoft no-longer supports XP activation."

[Imalittleteapot]

Some copies.

Some copies of XP don't need to be activated. If you use certain CD-keys, corporate volume keys, XP is automatically validated after install. Even if the computer isn't connected to the net.

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.

[watugit]

no profit in keeping license servers running

We're sorry we're not making any money by issuing licenses so you can use content you legally purchased so we'll just shut down the servers. By the way we have this lousy iPod wannabe called a Zune that you have to buy and don't forget to fork out more money to rebuy the content you already purchased because you won't be able to use your existing tracks anymore. In a few months we plan to discontinue Zune so you'll have to buy another lousy gizmo we come up with then and rebuy your content yet again if you want to continue listening to stuff you've already purchased many times before. We make more money by selling poorly supported barely functioning gizmos anyway.

[streamOG]

Nice hatchet job but not a lot of facts.

MSN Music shut down because Microsoft as a company made a business decision to focus on Zune as their primary Music offering.

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?

[quarky42]

I call BS.

"No one ever foresaw being in this situation," Bennett said.

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.

[watugit]

PlaysForSure Except On Zune Or Any New Device After August

PlaysForSure, Vista Capable, Certified for Vista.. Talk about oxymorons. Same old MS marketing. Lets get everyone to buy into a grossly misleading brand (PlaysForSure) and once we have their money, we'll invent a new brand (Zune), not allow backward compatibility (sorry PaysUsForSure suckers you gotta rebuy content from the Zune Marketplace to work on Zune) and stop issuing of new DRM license keys so it doesn't play for sure and hope Zune sales pick up.

[minimalist]

I smell a class action lawsuit.

Maybe we'll get lucky it it will blow the doors off of DRM as we
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.