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Wal-Mart Ditches DRM, Keeps Censorship
Smiley Face writes "Wal-Mart has hopped on the DRM-free bandwagon with today's announcement that it will be participating in Universal's DRM-free sales pilot. The quality looks good: 256Kbps MP3 for 94 cents apiece, but customers are likely to be turned off by the retail chain's continued censorship. 'It's a bit hard to believe that all the customers who shop at the world's largest retailer want censored versions of music, though, but that's what they get. Only edited versions of albums with parental advisories are available, just as they are in Wal-Mart's offline stores. This isn't a new policy; Wal-Mart's online music store has carried only edited versions for years, but it's worth pointing out to potential new users tempted by the lower prices and lack of DRM.'"
That is the reason I never buy music from wal mart, as much as I may not like the words to some of the songs, the weird noises they replace them with are even worse.
And worse yet, sometimes they edit out things that aren't offensive at all.
There are lots of ways of creating clean versions. The policy of recording alternate lyrics goes back at least fifteen years, and all the way back to the 60's if you consider negotiations between labels and artists over controversial lines. Another common solution is reversing and chopping up contested lyrics, which does not leave a hole in the melody line and does not require re-recording the line.
50 cent
That dude thought the Holy Bible has sections too racy for children and young people and so he brought out an edited version.
Censorship is when the Govt uses its power to silence an expression. As others have noted, Walmart is not preventing the record companies from selling profanity laden songs in other places.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
As a store that is owned by someone(s), managed by someone(s), they have the right to decide what it is that they will and wont sell. Censorship is defined as the removal and/or withholding of information from the public by a controlling group or body.
censorship - deleting parts of publications or correspondence or theatrical performances
censoring
deletion - the act of deleting something written or printed
Bowdlerism - censorship in the form of prudish expurgation
Comstockery - censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality
Not all censorship is equal, nor does all arise from government or external force.
censorship, official prohibition or restriction of any type of expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order. It may be imposed by governmental authority, local or national, by a religious body, or occasionally by a powerful private group.
I don't know who taught you to think that it's not censorship when it's done for profit, but you were lied to. Censorship is done by whoever has the power to do it, no matter if the power used to do it is by nature political, capital or personal.
You can't take the sky from me...
What do you mean? Isn't it an opportunity for the town to have a better store with lower prices due to highly efficient union labor? HAHA!
BTW, that's not what happened according to the article that YOU linked. The store was already unionized. The union played chicken with its members livelihoods and lost. I really can't believe it doesn't happen more often.