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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.'"
Why is this under "your rights online," and why is the word "censorship" used in the summary? Censorship is when the government infringes on your free speech. If a private organization doesn't want to sell you a particular item, that has nothing to do with the first amendment. Joe's Bar and Grill doesn't offer any CDs for sale -- does that constitute censorship? No, it just means that Joe didn't choose to offer a particular item for sale at the bar. It seems particularly ludicrous to complain about this at a time when there are so many real and horrible civil liberties problems in the U.S., e.g., the attorney general declaring that there is no right to habeas corpus in the constitution.
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How is this censorship? Like any other store, Walmart chooses what they will and will not stock. Regardless of what you personally think of Walmart, they got where they are by making smart (perhaps sometimes ruthless) business decisions. I know this might be hard for some Slashdotters to believe, but what about people who want censored, or a 'radio edit' of a song? Besides, nobody is forcing you to shop at Walmart, and if you want to buy music there then you get what they sell. I don't see how the "censorship" issue is news at all.
Hurrah for dropping DRM though. Be interesting to see how long this will last and if there is any repercussion. One nice thing about Walmart is that it's big enough to just smile give the bird to the RIAA.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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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. Its ashame that our society doesn't care that these are not the true songs that were released, but
1) Walmart has the Marketshare
2) Record Companies want to be in those locations
3) Record Companies bend to walmart.
Its not like they dont have a choice. And obviously its what many people want. If you want to call something worthless, call the Artist that allows their intellectual property (which they have most likely sold to the Label) to be modified from its orig. artistic form, Assuming they arent just out for money as well.
The ones I saw had an edited sticker. This will get modded down but Wal-Mart isn't censoring anything. They have simply told the music companies that they will not carry albums with parental advisory stickers. The record companies don't have to comply. Wal-Mart isn't censoring anymore than you are if you choose not to watch Fox News.
I do find it a little silly that they worry about "bad" words but sell alcohol, tobacco, and guns.
I find tobacco a lot more offensive and family unfriendly than most bad words.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The important distinction is that, in this case, censorship adds value for some consumers, while DRM does not.
Ok, so Walmart is selling MP3s @ 256kbps for $0.94 and Apple is selling AACs @ 256kbps for $1.30. I like Apple and all, but is the quality of AAC _really_ that much better than MP3 to warrant an extra $0.36? I can barely tell the difference between 160kbps and 256kpbs MP3s, but maybe it's just me... ~B
The most important change with Wal-Mart offering DRM-free music is that it is clear customers will see music as having one of two different types of labels, WMA vs MP3. Customers tend to know that MP3's can be used technologically unrestricted, but WMA can be restricted; having this choice makes them aware that music can be sold legitimately under MP3's.
Given no direct benefit but only impediments for customers with WMA or DRM, they will attach negative connotations to DRM systems. As long as this negative connotation is implanted long enough, they will come to expect that things should only get better over time, and that WMA and DRM will eventually go away.
In this manner, the societally expected norm will change, and the anti-DRM side will win the war of minds.
My local Christian book store doesn't sell Hustler! That's Censorship! Those Nazis!
My local adult bookstore doesn't sell the Bible! That's Censorship! Those Nazis!
My local country radio station refuses to play "Tooling for Anus" by The Meatmen! That's Censorship! Those Nazis!
And on and on...
Can we get over this "Store X sells items that are profitable since they're desirable to their target customer" and stop calling it censorship for once and for all? Because a business uses their legal right to choose what they do and do not sell hardly fits into the definition of censorship. On the most technical level, yes. But the word has long overgrown it's Webster dictionary definition in modern society.
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Playing devils advocate, WalMart do have very low prices, and if you're on a low income, they are a great place to shop. There's always the argument made that they kill local businesses. That much is true, sort of, but there was a story recently about a town that didn't want WalMart, but they opened anyway. Then after a few years, for whatever reason, it closed down, and the town wanted it BACK. It didn't KILL local business. It changed it. Other stores opened up near the new WalMart etc...
Their album censorship is nuts. I've known about since I saw a piece on TV about Rob Zombie's "Hellbilly Deluxe" and it played the regular version, and the WalMart version.
Of course what's interesting is they do this with Parental Advisory stuff. The recent Nine Inch Nails album "Year Zero" has no such label on it, despite having quite a few incidences of the F word on it. I wonder if that got past them?
WalMart are considerably evil. But for many, they are an evil necessity.
Alcohol in my opinion is bad. It exasperates many social ills and is often abused by minors. If you want to "protect kids by not selling product at all instead of restricting it then yes don't carry alcohol.
Guns. Well guns to kill lots of people and again if you are going to not sell a product based on it danger factor then guns would be on that list.
Tobacco is just evil. Selling it is evil and the tobacco companies are just evil. I have watched two friends die from lung cancer that was probably caused by tobacco.
So yes I find it as dumb for Wal-Mart to not carry records with parental warnings as I do for a town to outlaw topless bars when their are hookers on the main street.
Yea you probably wouldn't want to shop at a store I ran since I wouldn't carry alcohol, tobacco, or firearms.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yelled while pounding my desk, in a passable Bela Oxmyx imitation: "I got rights!"
I got rights! On one side of the street is a Rasputin's Music. On the other is the Evil Rapacious Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart doesn't sell CDs with vulgar lyrics, Rasputin's does. This is censorship! My rights are being violated! I am being oppressed because I have to walk across the street to buy an albumn where someone says "fuck"! Think of the children!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
products that cost less:
is this evil (as so many walmart haters like to label)? and dont say that chinese products are shit, there is some very high quality stuff coming out of china (despite the fear campaign the media is pushing)
putting people who barely make enough money to survive out of business:
maybe these people need to do something else to make a living if it is so bad. how about if I move into town and open a tiny store that takes away their customers? does that make me evil, or am i just another guy with a successful small business? how large does my business need to be in order to be classified as 'evil'?
being anti-union:
shutting down a store to curb what could be an epidemic in their organization? you know what unions do, right? they organize workers so that they can pressure the organization for more benefits/money/vacation/whatever, otherwise the workers dont work. whether this is necessary at walmart, i do not know, but i do understand entirely why walmart canned them: because that was the only way to handle it.
im not a regular walmart shopper. hell, there isnt even a walmart IN my town (closest one is 100 miles away), but there are some (not all of them, of course) shitty small businesses either running local rackets or offer little service/products because they can get away with it. a walmart (or any other nationwide store) would force these shops to either improve their service or get shut down. the small store has every advantage when walmart moves in on them. they have an existing client base, a reliable location (and if not, they should have fixed that long ago), prices that arent exorbitant (if its a good business), and hopefully a good reputation in the community. if walmart can pop into any town and knock some barely-functioning businesses out, then where is the real problem?
- Alcohol often lets a very shy person open up and talk to people they never would normally, therefore breaking an initial barrier (hell, I know). And I have nothing against minors drinking responsibly, even more so with parental supervision. Nothing better than a son sharing his first beer with his father (oh wait, that would imply a certain level of parenting) - Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Guns are only the means to do it. Otherwise, religion kills people, cars kill people... so on and so forth. - Tobacco is as evil as that spread crap they sell in the US instead of good old butter. The tobacco companies are just as evil as Wal-Mart. PEOPLE decide to smoke, not the tobacco industry. A bit of frigging self-control never killed anyone. But then, we have alcoholics. We have gun-crazed people who think everything can be solved by just pulling the trigger. We have 8-year-old kids smoking. Everything can be solved by just getting rid of those so-called 'evils'? Why don't we get rid of all the science books as well? Then maybe the atomic bomb wouldn't have been invented. People need to get their heads out of the sand, and look reality in the eye. Truth hurts. Deal with it. I might be modded troll for this, but it's sad to see that still today people hide behind preconceived notions of 'good' and 'evil'.
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