The Day The Music Died: Windows Media and DRM

SampleMinded writes "The Guardian reports on an early glimpse of what a DRM controlled future looks like. Imagine backing up your files, reformatting your hard drive, then copying the files back over only to find your music no longer works. It happened to this guy. Now That's what I call Xperience!"

Comments

In all fairness

[swagr]

it did sound like updateing the licenses for the "new" computer was pretty simple.

What I don't understand is the reason the files could be "re-licensed" was because they were legit in the first place. Well.... isn't this true for any copy? (at some point down the line it was legit)

Now imagine if you paid for those tracks

[RailGunner]

While I feel somewhat* sorry for the person that lost all their music files, at least they (presumably) didn't pay for them, so really it's just an inconvenience to re-copy their cd's to their hard drive.

But what if they had paid for them? Even a trivial amount like 25 cents adds up extremely quick. At least in their case, though, they still have the files. Hard drives fail.. the Windows Registry can be corrupted.. what then? Do you re-purchase all the files you've already bought once?

This should be yet another compelling reason to dump Windows in favor of Linux on your PC's.

* I can't feel too sorry for anyone using Windows Media Player Spyware.. Is it really Microsoft's business that I spend a large part of my work day writing code and listening to (legal) mp3 rips of my Ozzy Osbourne cd's?

Why DivX died?

[jvmatthe]

The customer just has to be connected to the internet, then they can automatically restore their licenses just by playing the music files in question.

I have been told, and I believe even read in dead-tree publications, that the reason the DivX plan died was that people were creeped out by having to dial someone up and transfer information. Even with the *promise* of anonymity, this is guaranteed to scare some people away, since they worry "What if?" (Like "What if the company goes bust and they sell their database to someone that doesn't make the same promise?" or "What if they get hacked and someone takes my credit card number or personal viewing habits?")

Add into this that much of media innovation and format decisions are apparently driven by the porn production industry, and the reason for media without a tether to home base becomes more clear. No one wanted to buy a DivX disc that phoned home to validate and no porn movie maker really wanted to go that route because they know their audience.

Having to phone home has got to be the Achilles' Heel for this kind of stuff. I sure as hell don't want it, and I imagine most people would feel the same way, even if they aren't watching dirty movies.

Re:Why DivX died?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

I have been told, and I believe even read in dead-tree publications, that the reason the DivX plan died was that people were creeped out by having to dial someone up and transfer information... this is guaranteed to scare some people away

Yup. That's why, nowadays, companies simply don't tell you that they're doing this. Let's see a show of hands -- how many people knew Windows Media Player kept a list of your "allowed" tracks? And that the list was kept on Microsoft's servers?

Re:It's already happening

[Antibitch]

I would also suggest using Winamp. It has a built in decoder that allows files such as .wma .wav or other sound formats to be converted to .mp3, which is one of the unregulated file formats. Best of all, winamp is free at www.winamp.com I personally like it better as a player as well.

Because of what MS isn't telling you

[DunbarTheInept]

MS doesn't want to tell this to people, but it obviously must be archiving your list of songs on their servers somewhere. Remember the EULA of WMP that says you give MS the right to 'spy' on what you are playing? I think this feature might be the reason why that clause was there. They know that you had played that song in WMP once before.