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.'"

Comments

government, corporation, and individual can do it

[Scrameustache]

I dont like the store either, but this is NOT really censorship.
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.