Wal-Mart Relaunches Online Music Store

ack154 writes "The latest competitor in the paid music download business will now open its 'doors,' as Walmart begins selling songs at 88 cents online. It had recently finished a three month testing period and now will open to everyone. According to CNN, however, they don't care so much about selling music, 'Analysts have said the goal for Wal-Mart is to bring more people to its Web site.' Maybe they're taking cue from Apple in trying to sell something (iPod) else by using a music store? Articles can be found at Reuters, CNN and others." amichalo points out that this is really a re-entry, writing "The service was previously launched last December. No explanation as to the re-launch (cough-poor-sales-cough) other than the addition of exclusive artists."

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Re:Censorship

[Cruciform]

Doubt it. I just did a quick search for a few bands I listen to.

KMDFM - no songs.
Front Line Assembly - no songs.
Slayer - two songs of some crappy various artists collection.
Revolting Cocks - no songs.
Cat Rapes Dog - no songs.
Noise Unit - no songs.
Rammstein - Three songs, two off the Lost Highway soundtrack, and one off a Depeche Mode tribute.

So if you like bubblegum pop, hiphop, and country, Wal-Marts the place to shop. Otherwise, no dice.

Re:...but do they censor the online stuff too?

[akikage]

I don't think so. I specifically remember Walmart requiring the song list for Nirvana's In Utero to list the song "Rape Me" as "Waif Me" (Kobain's personal choice as replacement) before they'd sell it, but their online store lists it as "Rape Me".

Failure!

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

Maybe, Maybe not. OK, I downloaded the 'sample' song, "What's you name" by Damian Anderson. Anyway, the file is encoded as WMA and does allow burning to a CD, although I haven't seen an option to convert to MP3 or another format. Further, if they are all going to be WMA, wont that allow for different Labels adding their own DRM into different files? In other words, you can burn some, but not others.

WALMART.COM may from time to time amend, supplement or modify the terms of this Agreement. It is your responsibility to check these Terms of Service (available in the Music Downloads Help section) periodically for changes. Your continued use of the Service following the posting of changes will mean that you accept and agree to the changes. If you do not agree to be bound by the Agreement as amended, you must stop using the Service.

Also, looking at the useage terms

What are the restrictions on how I can use the music I download? By purchasing a music download, you are entitled to: * Download the music to 1 computer and back up music to 2 additional computers (see instructions below) * Make 10 burns to a CD * Make unlimited transfers to a portable device Microsoft Windows Media(R) Player 9 keeps track of the rights associated with each song. To back up your music, you will need to make copies of 1) the song files, and 2) the license files and transfer these to the new computer. Your song files are available in the place where you download your music. To back up license files, in Windows Media Player go to the Tools menu and click on License Management. You will see a dialogue box asking you where you want to store the license backup files. Click the "Back up Now" button to save the license files to this location. Then transfer the license files to the new computer. Please refer to the instructions in the Windows Media Player's help system for more information on backing up and restoring music to a computer.

Of course you could re rip from the CD's and convert into the format of your choice, but that is an extra step, and I personally wouldn't pay for a service that doesn't allow me to easily do whatever I wish, with the data on my computer.

Wow - look at the usage policy

[IamGarageGuy 2]

If anybody sees the usage policy involved, they would certainly think twice. Media Player 9 only, need connection for first time played, must be played within 120 days to activate, can only burn CD's with Media player 9, cannot burn in any other format. Is this the norm? I can't believe people would not be put off by this.

My prediction?

[Aslan72]

They'll be out of business again in 3 months. People try and compete with apple only to go to the same miserable mistake: militant DRM.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but *if* they were to ever drop their restrictive DRM and go with AAC, or something similar, I would darken their doorstep. Otherwise, I don't care if you offer .wma files for a penny a piece, they're not worth the space on my hard drive.

The only people that will ever succeed in online music stores will be those that offer decent DRM that is fair to both the fan and artist alike.

Get a clue Smiley yellow happy face guy

--pete

The Wal-Mart audio format?

[Chris Tucker]

WMA, and requires Windows Media Player 9.

To quote their website:

(Sorry, no Mac or Linux.)

Sorry, guys, you'll get no money from me!
(Not like I shopped there, anyway.)

Re:...but do they censor the online stuff too?

[grondu]

From their download site:

What does a song marked "(Edited)" mean?
An "edited" song is an alternate version of a song that has been recorded without explicit lyrics.

Price no 99 cents

[TechKiller-Jam]

If you live in a state where Wal-Mart has a physical store location you MUST pay sales tax. At 7% sales tax, the song will cost 95 cents.

Re:Censorship

[bigman2003]

I'm a proud user of the Wal-Mart DVD rental service (Net-Flix basically)

I don't have any problem with it at all. The movies get delivered fast, and the one time that I had a problem, I went on-line and clicked the "I did not receive this movie" button, and two days later it was at my door.

So, not everything Walmart touches turns to crap.

Oh- I've also gotten a lot of digital pictures printed by them- they did a great job, and it was cheap and easy...just the way I like it.

Re:...but do they censor the online stuff too?

[akintayo]

Yes.

Like the retail outlets, the online store will adhere to Wal-Mart's policy of not selling songs that carry parental advisory labels and instead offer the clean radio-play versions, Lin said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ ch ronicle/archive/2004/03/24/BUG855Q1831.DTL&type=bu siness

Walmart's Power

[D-Fly]

The LA Times did an excellent series on Walmart's
negative effects on US manufacturers, overseas suppliers, its own workers, and the US economy last year. It was sparked by the impending entry of Walmart into the Southern California grocery market. Which also indirectly caused the painful, drawn out strike by workers at other grocery chains there.

But my favorite story on Walmart I've read so far (other than the lady who was nearly killed last year in the scramble for a cheap dvd player) is Fast Company's analysis of the company's effect on US manfacturers.

It starts, oddly, with a jar of pickles. And talks about how getting a distribution deal with Walmart eventually undermines and nearly destroys the Vlasic pickle company, due to savage cost cuts forced by Walmart, and undermining of the company's brand-image as they moved to selling big, cheap jars of pickles.

Along the way, the article shows how Walmart forces US manufacturers to move overseas, and even advises them on how to do it.

Re:Walmart's Power

[llj555]

Except that the woman in the DVD incident was a "frequent faller." She had nine "accidents" in Wal-Mart stores, and has filed personal injury suits against six stores. From Gizmodo.

Re:SO let me get this straight

[YrWrstNtmr]

b) i get to use some handcuff microsoft monoply DRM schema instead of the aptly named "Fairplay" DRM from itunes.

[from Walmart]
What are the restrictions on how I can use the music I download?
By purchasing a music download, you are entitled to:
Download the music to 1 computer and back up music to 2 additional computers (see instructions below)
Make 10 burns to a CD
Make unlimited transfers to a portable device

[from iTunes]
In a nutshell, your FairPlay agreement entitles you to:
play your music on up to three computers (and enjoy unlimited synching with iPods),
allows unlimited burning for individual songs and
lets you burn unchanged playlists up to 10 times each.

Except for AAC v WMA, iTunes v browser, Apple v Microsoft/Walmart, they sound quite similar.

But we'd never let facts get in the way of a good opportunity to get modded up by slamming MS, would we?

Re:Sample song works on a mac

[FlashBIOS]

The song you downloaded was not protected with any DRM. That's why it worked. But buy a song (which has DRM) and you'll see that MPlayer isn't so magical anymore.

Re:SO let me get this straight

[Blondie-Wan]

There are some notable differences. First of all, where the Wal-Mart terms say you can download to 1 computer and back up to 2 others, they mean this:

What computer should I use to download my music? You should download your music to the one computer where you keep your digital music. Once you play a song, it can be played, burned or transferred to a portable player from that computer only, based on the usage rights for that song.

By comparison, any of the three machines you put iTunes music on has full privileges for burning CDs, transferring to iPods, streaming over a network, and/or using music in your iMovies, iPhoto slideshows, and iDVDs (a whole type of usage absent from most other services, AFAIK). If you buy Wal-Mart downloads, you can only burn CDs and transfer to portables from your primary machine, and you can't change it. Not only do you get full usage on each of the three machines with iTunes, but you can deauthorize a comp and authorize another in its place - very useful for upgrades. With Wal-Mart, a song is forever tied to that one computer you downloaded it on, and the first two you backed it up on - when you move to your next box, the music doesn't go with you.

Also, there's a very important distinction between "Make 10 burns to a CD" (Wal-Mart) and "burn unchanged playlists up to 10 times each" (iTunes). With the former, a given song can only be burned 10 times, ever. With the latter, it's just that a particular playlist can be burned ten times before you have to change it. Any individual song can be burned to CD as many damn times as you please - and even a playlist can be burned more than ten times, so long as you change it every ten burns. This can be as simple as changing a single track (adding one, deleting one, changing order, whatever) - and you can then change it right back if you like. Effectively, then, you can even burn the same whole playlist as many times as you like; you simply have to intervene at least once every ten burns. This is just so you don't set a machine to mass duplicate 100 copies or whatever of a playlist and walk off, come back, and start handing out copies of that playlist to a hundred strangers. You can still do essentially that, but you have to at least intervene; apparently that's considered just enough of an annoyance factor that they don't worry about people doing it.

Between those two things, the iTunes service is ultimately much less restrictive - you can burn songs as many times as you like (as opposed to just ten), and you can have whatever three computers you want each have full privileges for the music, and can change them around whenever you like (as opposed to having full privs on just one of the three machines, and being unable to change the machines when you replace one).