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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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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.
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The important distinction is that, in this case, censorship adds value for some consumers, while DRM does not.
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 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'.
Coffee is the first ingredient for successful world domination.