Virgin Digital To Close Up Shop

mrspin writes in to note the demise of the Virgin Digital music store. Here is Virgin's announcement. It will shut down in stages: the service closed its doors to new subscribers on Friday; current subscribers will lose all access to it when their next monthly payment is due or on Oct. 19, whichever comes first. The store advises customers who have purchased downloads to back them up to CD and re-import them as MP3. It used to discourage such DRM-evading tactics.

Comments

Re:Virgins closing shop?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason Virgin has to go away is that I penetrated it through a back door.

Re:Re-import to Mp3?

[dwater]

> dump their collections before their lost,

before their lost what?

Re:Re-import to Mp3?

[JimDaGeek]

Everyone is happy using iTunes

So you have talked to "everyone" to confirm this? I have all new Intel Macs in my house, about $4,500 worth to be frank. I have bought about 50 songs on iTMS and converted them from their DRM-encrusted crap. iTunes and iTMS is not _too_ bad for just music. At least you can convert your music, at a lose of quality, to a non-DRM encrusted format.

However, all things are not so perfect with iTMS WRT non-music. I purchased 3 seasons of "The Office" from the iTMS. Playing the episodes in iTunes across my network was just crap, slow and choppy. I couldn't burn the episodes to DVD so I went to Blockbuster and rented the 3 seasons and burned them to non-DRM encrusted mp4 files. Now they play great across the same network using VLC.

I am just wondering why playing a DRM-encrusted TV episode from an Intel iMac to an Intel Macbook over a wireless G network was so crappy. As soon as I deleted all the DRM-encrusted TV episodes and replaced them with mp4 rips, I could watch them across the same network with VLC or Quicktime/iTunes.

As a heavy Mac users, iTunes was once a great music/media manger/player. Now it is just a bloated portal to iTMS. I have gotten a bunch of iTunes updates on my Macs over the last 2 months. Each one has come with a NEW EULA. Uh, this sounds like MS to me. I am sure the Mac "fanboies" will say "it is because of the new iPhone and new iPods". Great. But why do I have to agree to a new EULA to use the new iTunes?

Oh, and don't get me started on the retarded crap that the iPod I have can only be "synced" to one specific computer. If I plug it in to my iMac, I get a message that it was from another computer and iTunes wants to ERASE all the songs! So I cant' put songs on from my Mac and then put a few songs on from my wife's Macbook. WTF? I have found ways around this, but it is anything but "user friendly" or the "it just works" mantra.

I love Mac OS X, the OS, but Apple is doing some stupid stuff with their other products and the lock-in/DRM IMO.

Que the Mac fanboi who will say, "You are not Steve, I am sure Steve knows how to run Apple better than you".

Yawn. I have spent thousands on Apple products. I think that should have a little influence on Apple.... I hope...

Oh, and I am not trolling. I agree with most of what you say, except for the people being "happy" with iTMS. I am sure for every person some troll say is happy, I can show someone who is not.

Your point about DRM is "on the money" IMO. I just felt like typing a lot of crap. :-)