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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.
Well, there's a hole that will need to be filled.
How about they provide non-DRM mp3 downloads so people can dump their collections before their lost, rather than making more lossy copies?
I haven't used Virgin's store, so I'm not familiar with the license that users signed. But isn't it reasonable to expect that Virgin has to provide a more direct method for users that have paid for their downloaded content to obtain a permanent copy of it? "Burn it to CD and rip it back" seems arduous and probably not even feasible for the level of computer literacy they should expect from their clients.
Would such an argument even hold up in court?
If you can't find a real troll, just mod down whoever you don't agree with!
Okay.
... the gigantic building?
So they have this huge stockpile of music, and they're incapable of simply posting it and running a credit-card outsourced solution?
The artists get the 8 cents per sale, right? So the rest pays for
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
That is, another proprietary format.
Most companies I've encountered that DRM their content claim that if they ever go out of business that they'll keep their activation servers going, transfer the activation to a third party, or better yet, release a key/patch to permanently "free" the content.
Never seems to happen, though.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
If anyone runs into authorization problems for those songs, especially on the computer where they were originally purchased. "Pay money to buy a song and we may revoke your access at some unspecified, arbitrary short time" is not a valid contract term. Going CD-RW -> MP3 route is not a solution since the company previously claimed that it would be illegal.
This is why software/content as a service is bollocks.
The possibility of the company going out of business is regularly cited as a reason against DRM, because it leaves your purchases worthless.
This is an example of it happening in reality.
People are going to have to either waste CD-R's or loose quality by reencoding them to another lossy format... really abismal.
I don't get it. Why can't they just make available a program that strips their DRM from the music files, and let their subscribers download and use said program? This would be much easier than burning and ripping. Plus, you don't lose any more quality than you already have.
With the ENTER VIGIN DIGITAL (sic) text on it.
Clunky, complicated, hideous to look at and use websites. Payment methods just asking to be abused, or designed to turn away the many people who choose life without credit cards.
Just try and purchase, say, a CD or book online. Direct bank funds transfer? Nope. Gotta be a credit card. Then try and actually use a credit card at a site like Think Geek, where they ask you to supply digital photos of your drivers licences, a recent bill, etc.
For those of us in (very) rural locations, the choice is either give up and buy stuff from a brick-and-mortar store the next time you're in a town, or leap through the flaming online hoops and risk becoming the victim of identity theft as a result...but only if you're willing to have a credit card.
Those who claim DRM is nothing but the "lock to your door" or "the alarm in your" car are going to have a hard time trying justify their business model when things like this end up happening...
While it does mean you lose those particular tracks, the mentality I keep hearing from people I would expect to know better is, in a world where everyone has enough bandwidth to stream radio 24/7, nobody cares that you've lost your music collection.
You just switch to a different, competing service, and re-download everything.
The guy I had this conversation with reasoned it like this: If you're going legit, this is the cheapest way. You lose the ability to have stuff work on an iPod, but he had something else anyway. Everything he wanted to do with it, the DRM software let him do -- except play it on Linux, which he didn't want anyway (partly because it didn't work on Linux -- chicken and egg).
And the economics of it: He calculated that he'd have to subscribe to this service for 15 years straight before he'd be spending more than it would cost to buy the stuff outright on iTunes or CD. And that was just counting songs he'd already downladed -- obviously, in 15 years, he'd be downloading a lot more stuff.
Me, I'm not willing to give up my freedom like that, and stuff just has to work on Linux. Besides, I listen to a lot of Internet radio. But content as a service really isn't a problem. Software as a service, maybe, because you have your own data attached to it, but music? Who are we kidding?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Apple seem to be the only people who've managed a paid digital music store with any success. eMusic has been going forever without any real traction, Napster continues to lose money, meanwhile you can get free, legal major label music from places like imeem.com which is all ad supported.
I was sure this Virgin Store was an iTunes killer. Differential pricing, backed by a major record label, subscription and purchase options, not restricted to an iPod.
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Those who don't understand sarcasm are doomed to misread it.
Just what is it about the iTunes Store that's so hard to grasp? Put up a store that sells a huge selection of music at half-decent prices with halfway-tolerable DRM, and the world beats a path to your door.
Put up a store that rents a limited selection of music at lousy prices and heavy-handed DRM, and the world yawns. That business model has now been tried at least a dozen times and has failed every single time.
There are other kinds of products for which a manufacturer would refuse to sell through the only store that's successfully sold that product, and instead sets up its own store--but music is the only product for which they set up stores that emulate, not the successful store, but the unsuccessful stores.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It sure didn't happen with the $300 worth of DRMed, encrypted content I purchased for my GemStar eBook.
That content is keyed to a hardware serial number in my own, personal eBook device.
The servers were shut down, the customer service people who could have enabled the content to work on a different eBook device are gone, but it doesn't matter anyway because there are no follow-on devices that use that encryption scheme.
No provision was made for freeing the content, there's no equivalent of "burning to CD and re-RIPping), and when my vintage 2000 eBook--which has started to act funny--finally dies, all the content I purchased dies with it.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
No one wants disappearing music. If it were otherwise, Virgin would not be closing. Not even M$ could sell it and everyone who bought into it is either evil or a fool.
Fee services are greedy and won't work. According to this BBC story, people spend about $25/year on music. Plans that ask for this amount per month or multiples of it per year are doomed to fail.
The industry and the law itself has been harmed by the Copyright extremists. Laws that transparently guard the interest of a few at the expense of many have bred contempt. The theft of thousands of people's life savings by bogus prosecutions have only made things worse. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Do they really say users should rip to MP3? All I'm seeing are suggestions that you back up your collection since you won't be able to re-download them. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
The real question is how are the tracks locked to a given purchaser? If you need to authenticate to some Virgin Digital service when you, say, move to a new computer, then there is a problem.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
eMusic no traction? They are the second largest digital music retailer. The #1 largest DRM-free retailer and probably the only major digital retailer with (recently updated) Linux support. It's a great resource for slightly older music or anything even remotely off the beaten path (my main interest).
Quack, quack.
Most people are not serious enough audio listeners to notice any difference between re-ripped stuff and the originals. You have to remember the equipment most people use to listen to music is not that great either.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Time and again we have seen that if there is any choice at all, people don't want subscriptons where they pay to access some nebulous "service". They want something they can keep, even if it's a virtual "something".
People also dislike differental pricing as it usually ends up being "differential" the wrong way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
of a company failing to replicate Apple's success with DRM-managed downloads. There's only one MS Office, there's only one iPod. Deal with it. Apple's learned how to play nice with MS Office, when will other media download site learn the same (painful) lesson that you ignore the iPod only at your own peril?
Any (legal) media company that doesn't take the iPod into account is doomed to failure or at least irrelevance. The only one to succeed and flourish in a post-iPod world is eMusic, and that's because you can play songs from there on a your iPod or Zune (shudder) or whatever.
Wal-Mart is opening up their DRM, so is Amazon. NBC, however, is still clueless.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Near the top:
The terms and conditions below apply to you if you use any of the Virgin Digital service (as more particularly set out in paragraph 5 and the Virgin Digital Player which is the software platform from which subscribers operate the services), the terms and conditions also governs the use of the Website itself....
Your use of this Website, the Virgin Digital Player and the Virgin Digital service are subject to these terms and conditions. By using this Website, the Virgin Digital Player and/or any of the Virgin Digital service, you acknowledge your consent to them.
Virgin reserves the right at its sole discretion, to change, modify, add or remove any part(s) of these terms and conditions without notice. It is important (and your responsibility) to check these terms and conditions periodically for any changes. Changes will be posted here. Your continued use of the Website or the Virgin Digital Player or the Virgin Digital service following the posting of any changes will constitute your acceptance of the changes.
And further down...:4. SERVICE LICENCES
The following sets out the licences which Virgin is granting you in order to use the Virgin Digital service as set out in Paragraph 5 below.
4.1 Content Licence
Virgin grants you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence ("Content Licence") to download or stream digital music content ("Content") to your personal computer or Portable Device (as defined in paragraph 5 below and subject to your rights under these terms and conditions) solely for your personal non-commercial use. You shall not (without limitation) copy, reproduce, "rip", distribute or use the Content in any other manner, save as permitted by these terms and conditions.
And further down yet:
5. SERVICE DESCRIPTION AND USAGE
...
5.1.3 "Purchased Download" A Track downloaded to the hard drive of your computer which can either be burned to a CD or transferred to a portable device subject to the following usage rules: (a) Purchased Downloads may be transferred to portable devices, which shall mean a hardware device with software (including embedded software) ("Portable Device") which enables you to export Permitted Downloads from a personal computer for play back on a Portable Device in accordance with the provisions of these terms and conditions. (b) You can make up to seven (7) burns per individual playlist (i.e. your chosen selection of Tracks in one (1) particular order). (c) You can transfer any single Purchased Download to up to five (5) secure portable devices up to twenty-five (25) times. PLEASE NOTE that any attempt to circumvent any controls that we have in place to prevent additional burning and/or transfers outside of your permitted rights will be a breach of these terms and conditions and may result in the immediate termination of your Virgin Account and may also subject you to civil and/or criminal liability.
And finally...:
15.3 In the event of a direct conflict or inconsistency between these terms and conditions and privacy policy and other terms and conditions that may be applicable to the Website or the Services these terms and conditions shall prevail to the extent that such conflict relates to your use of the Services and/or Website.
15.4 The failure of Virgin to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these terms and conditions will not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.
Emphasis mine
So basically, Virgin can tell you whatever the hell you want to hear, with regards to how to handle the music you've downloaded. The only caveat is that it's non-binding and that the terms in their "Terms and Conditions" section hold up in court.
I don't get it... If it is so easy, and legal to strip the DRM from music rented from iTunes, you should be twice as pissed as if it you couldn't remove the DRM. They have added hoops for you to jump through for absolutely no reason. If the DRM stripping is legal and simple, then the only possible reason for the DRM in the first place is that Apple hopes that a certain percentage of people will slip up in bypassing the hoops, and have to pay a second or third time for the same product. Either that, or they are trying to cause problems for their customers if they don't also buy an iPod. Really. You should be MORE pissed at Apple for their DRM. Not less.
To all those posters pontificating on the reason this business has failed, you should know that Virgin has just sold its Megastores in a management buyout.
Maybe the new owners of all things musical in Virgin don't see any profit in maintaining the online music store ?
And even if the online store was to remain outside of the buyout, Virgin Media have been making moves towards being a *big* media company for some time now (broadband, cable tv, mobile & landline telephony). Maybe there is no room for online music sales in that future. Control the infrastructure, let others worry about the consumables.
Half the stuff written in EULAs is just wishful thinking. Most countries have consumer protection laws that trump EULAs.
If the law says that Virgin cannot intentionally sell people a defective product, then they can't simply shut off this service. They need to provide their customers with refunds.