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MSN Music DRM Servers Going Dark In September
PDQ Back writes to tell us about an email Microsoft sent to former customers of MSN Music today. The company said it would be turning off the DRM servers used to authorize playback of music purchased from the now-defunct MSN Music store. "'As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,' reads the e-mail. This doesn't just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize, it also applies to operating systems on the same machine (users need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, for example). Once September rolls around, users are committed to whatever five machines they may have authorized — along with whatever OS they are running."
Proof that DRM is inherently evil, even for the MS fanbois.
simply brilliant.
At last Microsoft makes the case AGAINST DRM.
Thank you gentlemen.
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
They would only turn of the servers that supply Vista "updates"
Considering that we're talking about DRM, the parent poster is strangely on topic.
Do the original terms of the sale/license agreement permit Microsoft to do this?
And if so, does this show that the product, even as initially sold, was defective, unfit for purpose, or deceptively advertised?
And if you don't buy the non-DRM iTunes songs (meaning you buy the regular iTunes music) this is exactly something you have to look forward to in the future. Some legal action by the RIAA or what have you causes Apple to revoke DRM licenses and/or stop supporting iTunes client applications.
... as long as you want to be able to access that music, the company has to let you.
... we all already know the majority of slashdotters have the balls/lack the brains to defy the RIAA blatantly in that manner.
Never forget that DRM means you are dependent on a company
Which is why I buy from Amazon (or if the band's site supports/suggest another) non-DRM MP3 format.
Please do not respond with "which is why I buy all my songs for $0.00 from a site called Bittorrent posts." I do tire of those
My work here is dung.
I keep trying to explain to people why DRM is bad. This makes my job easier.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
... bittorrent has them backed up for you.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Seems the link in the article is incorrect (or has changed). Correct link is: MS to nuke music DRM
MSFT has a lot of power, and they can't use it properly. Sure they have incorrect philosophies, but they should at least be able to EXECUTE them... but they can't.
Personally if I ever get that much power, I would like to be able to use it to achieve what I want. What would you do with that much power?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Well that's just fabulous. Microsoft are basically telling their customers that in a few months your music is precariously balanced on the edge of not playing. How about unlocking all the music and getting over your failure of a music store huh?
The worst thing to do to greedy RIAA asshats is to share really free music. There's more high quality music at that one site than you can listen to over the next 100 years.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Sorry, been a long day studying for exams.
I still listen to music for free, you insensitive clod!
Music on demand
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
I have a bunch of CD's that I bought from a record store that went belly up. They still work. Maybe this DRM world ain't all its cracked up to be after all.
This is my sig.
Well, having used Vista for a couple of weks now, I would say not significantly.
My problems with Vista are the UAC, breaking EAX sound, shitty, SHITTY control panel layout, and in general UI speed.
I guess you could blame speed on somewhat on DRM, but that's really the least of my complaints.
that's Microsoft.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
So, only rap after that then, huh?
/ducks
sorry, sorry, sorry, had to...
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
"We'll have our compensation somehow."
Free Brown Zunes for everyone?
-- Terry
Heck, this sounds like great news. After all, unlike many a failed new media content venture, Microsoft isn't going out of business and leaving their customers high and dry... just retiring this particular service. So they have plenty of time to come up with a migration plan for their customers, so that nobody who paid for music has to lose access to it. I mean, hell. They're a multinational corporation with an image to protect. They're not just going to tell their customers to go fuck themselves, right?
Right?
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
This is just the reason why I never bought any music online. Unless it's MP3 or can be converted to MP3 I won't fool with it. Apple's Itunes is marginally tolerable, only because you can convert them to MP3 by re-ripping a burt CD. But if I do that, why should I buy them in the first place? I'll just buy a used CD and rip it. Sad people are getting screwed, but maybe they'll think before buying next time. Yeah, and maybe horses will fly too. - Kc
-- Kevin C. Redden kcredden@ gmail 392992
if ford came to your driveway and rendered it permanently undrivable when they stopped making it, no difference at all in that case.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Umm when ford stops their Aerostar line you can still drive the one you have, buy 3rd party replacement parts/repair existing ones, and refuel it.
Anyone want to take bets on when the 1st class action lawsuit will be filed due to this? I'll take April 30th 2008.
There is no security when liberty is sacrificed.
I am utterly pleased with MS decision to shut down the DRM servers.
Know why? There are people that don't realise how bad are DRM downloads until they get royally fucked in the ass and this is what's going to happen on sept 1 2008.
Nothing educates more than a bad experience.
Selling imaginary property is much different than selling goods.
But when Ford discontinues its Aerostar minivan line, there is nothing preventing you from still driving the minivan that you own.
When Microsoft turns off their DRM servers, and you upgrade from XP to vista (or reinstall XP because its now really bloated and slow, or buy a new computer), all the music that you 'own' is impossible to play.
As I understand it, the difference is that the owner of such a discontinued vehicle is still free to replace any parts as needed, from whatever source he/she can acquire them (e.g., a scrapyard), and the vehicle can still run. You don't need authorization from the original manufacturer to continue using the vehicle for its intended purpose after it has been modified.
Unlike DRMed music, it's not a federal offense for someone service your minivan when it breaks.
Ford discontinuing a minivan doesn't stop me from driving the *one I already bought*, or from obtaining spare parts and having repairs done.
HA HA!
because your minivan doesn't explode when aerostar goes belly up
i can only assume you typed that moments after huffing from a spray paint can
Well, to follow up on the parent poster's car metaphor, it's basically like saying they're not going to make any new parts for your car, so you can drive it just fine now but if you want to change anything at all in the future, you can't, and if anything breaks and you need to replace it, you're screwed.
E pluribus unum
Needless to say that if you actually bought the license to play music from this store, you probably deserved to loose "your" music.
I believe the term "Plays For Now(tm)" is more appropriate. Goes for all DRM content too.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Yes, all the replies to my original post have valid points. But then again, these are the _details_ of it, not the main gist of the story.
Sure, DRM is bad - I'll be the first to admit it - but MSFT shutting servers on products that it no longer supports? What's the big deal about that?
The main point is this, again using the (blast!) car analogy:
* Ford builds two new purpose-built factories to manufacture its Aerostar line
* Ford discontinues its Aerostar
* Ford shuts the two factories
What's the big deal?
The Wknd Sessions - Malaysian and South East Asia independent music
Would it cost them a huge amount of money to keep the server running? I doubt it. Compared to stuff like Windows update it's a tiny drop in the ocean.
It's almost as if they *want* this to be a lesson to somebody...nah, couldn't be...
No sig today...
How is this any different than, say, Ford discontinuing its Aerostar minivan line?
Did Ford engineer the Aerostar specifically so that, if they ever discontinued the line, you'd immediately be unable to change the oil or refill the gas tank?
It's one thing if a product happens to have necessary limits. It's another thing for the product to be purposefully and artificially crippled so that it will not function as expected.
The used CD market is looking a lot more attractive now, innit?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
More proof that car analogies don't work - especially for such a weak argument.
While you may think that's a ridiculous car analogy, it's not that far from reality. My parents' Saturn car, for example, has a special chip in the key to deactivate the anti-theft immobilizer. Even if you get another key cut at a locksmith, the key will open the door but will not start the car. So you have to spend $25 to get a new key cut by the dealership. If Saturn went under and you lost your key, you could no longer use your car. You can't even hotwire it easily, cus that's the whole point of the immobilizer in the first place.
Except that in this case it would be perfectly legal to get a mechanic to go and rip out the immobilizer circuit, whereas it's against the DCMA to strip the DRM from your WMA files. Then again, who cares about the legality, you can download a stripper to remove DRM from WMA files. It only works if you have the key in your "keyring", so people with MSN Music would have to strip it before changing OS or reinstalling their OS.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Isn't this classed as deceptive advertising ?
PlaysForAsLongAsWeTellYouItPlaysNowFuckOff would have been more appropriate.
Not at all the same.
With a car, even if whoever made it stops making parts, other suppliers could and likely would continue to supply parts.
No one else can legally authorize Microsoft's DRM for you.
i.e. with the car you still have hope, with DRMed music, you're screwed.
Apparently you missed the part where it is a Ford?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
a great disturbance on the Internet, as if millions of Plays For Sure musicplayers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Sig this!
No the analogy breaks down because Ford doesn't come to your house and take your keys away when they stop producing that model of car.
"Sorry, we know we sold you that 2003 Mustang, but now that we've discontinued the Mustang, you'll need to give us your keys and turn over the car."
That's how DRM works, in this case. iTunes is a bit more forgiving. None is perfect, but Microsoft shutting off the servers is particularly egregious.
Just wait until MS decides to turn off the server farm that enables XP installations; that'll put the music in perspective.
Can't say they should be surprised -- after all, they knowingly depend upon a product with fatal, vendor controlled DRM on it. That's playing with fire in any sensible person's book. The question is: Will MS's victims (excuse me, I should probably call them consenting masochistic partners) learn from this? Or will they continue to buy products booby trapped with fatal DRM?
I guess we already know the answer, anyway. It's that darned Gaussian come back to haunt us again.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
flash drives aren't meant to be written to regularly. using a flash drive as swap space means that your million writes will get hit very fast.
What worries me are the SSD drives running windows. Since they must have swap space to function promptly. Linux can disable swap. I am not sure if OS X can even do that, but I haven't yet tried either.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
While this is a perfect example of why DRM sucks, its also a perfect example of how media distributors can force a user to buy their music & movies multiple times. All they need do, is terminate one of their companies, and start a new one requiring a different DRM key or scheme.
:)
Like it or not, companies love this because by licensing you products, they can terminate the license at anytime and force you to buy it again.
DRM sucks.
Okay, first skip the obvious answer ... it was a rhetorical question.
They don't want to support it. Fair enough, stop issuing anymore of these types of DRM keys.
Now, what would cost them to keep this operational for a few years? 2 dedicated servers? 10? 20? 2 full-time staff for 5 to 10 more years to support this and use the existing datacentre support folks for the basic 24/7 stuff. Let's round it to a nice $2.5 million for 10 years. Not a whole lot for a large company.
What heat will they get from this? This is a PR fiasco for their DRM technology in general and more importantly shows that MS is willing to leave their "followers" high and dry when it suits them. What will these pissed off users do next time? Yeah, get iTunes, pirate, avoid music altogether, and better yet, avoid MS products. Potential revenue loss from 10,000 stranded users? Probably a few million. Think about: these folks PAID for DRM music. Easy sheep to get money from. They're killing their cash cow.
Someone at the MS marketing or client services department needs to get axed.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
In the free world, "defying" the RIAA is perfectly legal.
And additionally, if you "fix" it with third-party or home-made parts, it's illegal. In fact, the tools you use to fix it may even be illegal to distribute, under the DMCA circumvention clause.
Sam ty sig.
Aren't they dead and buried now? They're pretty well fucked, but all the music they ever sold still works fine.
Go with the honest ones. You can tell who they are. When they are taken down, they won't take you down with them.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Worse than that. Generally, after-market parts manufacturers can, and do, continue to fabricate spare parts for discontinued car models; in fact, it's a pretty good business. So it's like saying, "we're not going to make any new parts for your car, *and we're going to make sure that nobody else is allowed to, either*".
"FailsForSure"
Sorry, meant to say that they should stop issuing any media using the old type of DRM so that they add to their baggage. I guess they have to re-issue existing keys if people move the media to a different system which they might.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Let me give you a different take, then. Your comment would make perfect sense if Microsoft had not claimed to have sold the music in question (this applies just as much to Apple, for that matter.) By simply removing access to their authorization servers, they've effectively taken ownership of said music from the rightful owners. As all the RIAA supporters out there would no doubht say, they've stolen it. That's exactly what DRM is about ... blurring the lines of ownership. If Microsoft were to be honest about what they're doing, they would admit that and refund the money that all those people paid for now-useless data.
If they were simply renting the music on a pay-for-play basis it would be different, of course, like renting a DVD from Blockbuster. But that's not the way that music was offered. Those customers bought those tracks, or thought they did.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
No. They're. Not. Ford doesn't COME AND TAKE AWAY YOUR VAN. That is not a DETAIL.
No, its worst than that, its
"Sorry, you'll need to give us your keys. We'll leave the car in your front lawn where you can stare at it longingly and get more and more pissed at us."
If all goes well, its:
"stare at it longingly until some random Scandinavian comes out of his basement and sends around a code to get the thing running again"
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
How much money are they losing on this idiocy?
Since everyone affected by this already bought their music, none. At least in the short term, they're saving money by not keeping the servers up, and as for the long term, those who bought music from MS aren't likely to switch to any other OS, so I'd say they're not likely to lose a penny.The main point is your analogy is not apt. A use case of a car does not approximate the use case of a DRM licensed song.
And, someone has already responded to the point - with cars, somebody else can still build the parts if your car were to stop working. Except now, your car won't start for 'new drivers'. (And that's where the crap analogy breaks down).
I can't find the link at the moment but I've read that MS has stated that they would release a patch that would permanently disable XP's activation requirements when final support ends.
If someone has the link, post away.
Gone!
and who has the restrictions.
Though this was not the beginning, Music Match was one that happened first.
Downloaded a few MP3s last evening, no worries here.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Is it ForSure?(tm)
Because, when Ford shuts down the factories, the Aerostar van you bought doesn't vanish from your driveway, nor does it refuse to unlock it's doors or start when you turn the key.
How much better would Vista have been without DRM?
Does anybody really, truly know? I've used Vista since it came out, as have a lot of friends and family.. not run into any DRM yet. Then again that's not to say it isn't there- I've just not come across it. But who here really has run into the dreaded 'Vista DRM'? Who out of the whole Vista userbase has? I'd hazard as guess that it's an absolute minority of the users.Company X decides to stop supporting product Y (e.g. by making spare parts etc)
How is this any different than, say, Ford discontinuing its Aerostar minivan line?
It's different in that if you're lucky or persistent enough you'll always be able to find spare parts for your Aerostar minivan in some junkyard or on e-Bay. Some creative Taiwanese company might also have compatible parts. However this is like Ford hitting a kill switch on such and such a date, and suddenly all Aerostars in the world stop working on purpose. Doesn't matter if yours was fine or not. Or if you were in the middle of the desert. What is worse, thanks to the DMCA, if you're in the US and try to get your "Aerostar" working again you are now a CRIMINAL.
I've been here long enough to know about our beloved slashdot car analogies, but sheesh if you can't see the difference, perhaps you need bi-focals after all.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I agree with you. I actually will not take anything NOT in Mpeg or Ogg format. Preferably Ogg, but either format will suffice. No, I don't like WMV, WMA, or any of the other big formats (even though .mov is fairly nice) mostly because I have to consistently run someone's proprietary player. Not that I have a problem with that. But if I can't install it with .configure && make install... I don't do it.
:)
Hell, been a BSD user for years, and a Linux user for almost as long. Been a windows user for a little longer than I've been a Linux user, and i must say... of all three drugs, Windows left me pretty deflated... until I learned that I could work on and get Quake II, III and IV running in Linux, side by side with Doom 3
I'm still jumpy in dark rooms ever since then. I never understood why they had all the other guns in Doom3, shotgun was enough for all but the last few battles in Hell, and the ammo, even in nightmare mode was guaranteed to rarely run out if you could actually HIT what you aimed at.
What I can't figure out is WHY they don't have some NICE 30 caliber rifles in those games. Always fancy super fast needle guns, AHEM, "assault rifles" but never anything with good penetration and punch. Halflife2... 3mm SMG?? No wonder nobody dies from being shot with those pea shooters in that game.
Oops, got off track. EOF.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
No, they fixed that after the bad press they got from the Pinto line.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Just not for long.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
This is the funniest thing I've read all year.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
Surely Microsoft isn't the first record store to go dark. The largest perhaps. Is there a Wikilist with the record stores that have gone down this far?
Maybe they should have called it PlaysForNow?
What a stupid move. How much would it cost to keep the servers running vs. damaging their brand this way.
Too bad more people don't have more music like this. The bigger and badder the burn. The sooner people will be in the know and avoid DRM. All music with DRM is a rental. And someday the rental office will close down. So even if you want to pay rent, there will be no one to take it.
Congress will either mandate that Apple keeps their servers going...or the Federal Government will take over the job.
vi +
OH GEEZ, and they wonder why people continue to pirate music!!!!! SCREW DRM, PIRATE AWAY, STEAL IT ALL I SAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Record and music companies can kiss my thieving, pirating white butt!!!!!!!!
Source: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/25252
There's no point in waiting until 2014.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
I wonder if Microsoft is going to release an 'update' to Vista which turns YOUR PC into a DRM authentication server. They just don't want anyone knowing about it... yet
Can you possibly still not get it?
Your Minivan will continue to "work" after Ford closes it's DRM Factories, however if you decide to move house you cannot take your Minivan with you.
If you renovate your house, your Minivan will cease to work.
You can never sell your Minivan.
Serves you right for buying a DRM Minivan, I say.
Is there any chance they will do the right thing and provide a conversion utility to convert the DRM songs into non-DRM songs so the purchaser doesn't have the songs stolen back from them. If not, I smell a lawsuit..
The truth shall set you free!
It should only take 1-2 CDs for an iTunes user to burn his or her (on average) 20 purchased, DRM'ed tracks and be able to play them on any other machine. Not all DRM is created equal.
Just wait until MS decides to turn off the server farm that enables XP installations; that'll put the music in perspective.
At least Windows XP has the corporate version that allows you to install it without activation. Worse yet is Vista, where even the corporate version requires activation. Also, at the current rate of Vista adoption, they might stop supporting Vista before they stop supporting XP.
I have not seen this through the thread posts yet, BUT couldn't M$ go ahead and start unlocking all that music? Simply have a small prog that you can run on the comp that checks the customer's acct and music files to verify that they paid for it all and then unlock the music? I am not a programmer and don't really know how DRM functions, but I see this as a feesable solution.
"That's right...I said it."
Everything are so much easier as a pirate. You even got your backup online, so to speak.
Isn't this the fear that we've had all along about DRM content?
Isn't this another class action lawsuit against Microsoft just waiting to happen?
I mean apart from anything else, how fucking difficult could it be for Microsoft to keep a license server running anyway?
Unfortunately just about anyone "legally purchasing" music has signed a license agreement with the service. Since they are legally purchasing a license to use the sound recording for personal use - a rather restrictive license, at that - they really got what was coming to them.
I doubt that the courts would be an effective place to take this up. The market has already started to push producers towards offering their music through DRM-free avenues. (iTunes Plus, Amazon MP3, eMusic, Magnatune)
If enough users get screwed like this with closing DRMed stores, DRM will come crashing down.
(side note: I'm in a band that chose to only make its music available through DRM-free stores. We don't like letting retailers screw our fans. Check it out.
parent says my thoughts exactly, I'd mod up if I had thepoints.
The same argument applies to the plays-for-sure players. Those were sold on two arguments
1) it plays for sure. You are not beholden to apple or a single player maker. You can move it around on your computers. But it turns out you were beholden to one company afterall. The name alone ought to be enough to be false advertising on the players.
2) the players promised you you could buy music to play on the "plays for sure".
the player makers owe you your music as much as the music retailers.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You used to be able to disable swap in OS X via the /etc/rc file up until Leopard. Leopard changed things and now you essentially have to hack the dynamic_pager daemon to do the same thing. It's not impossible, but it's non-standard and def not for the average Mac user.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
some cool A laggest store to download mp3 music http://justmusicstore.com/ http://www.lavamus.com/
I have a machine in service with an embedded computer in it. The software for programming the computer does not support subdirectories. It dates from MS-DOS 1.1 from 25 years ago. It sort of works with MS-DOS 3.2 from 22 years ago.
Windows XP will still be in use after 2014. Not every piece of technology is easy to update.
How many dozen times have I installed XP...
All you do is type in CD key or put it in the answers file. I've never had any "please wait while we connect to the MS server to enable your XP installation..."
Talking about WGA for windows update etc?? Or am I missing out on this little bit for another reason...
That information used to be available here, but has mysteriously vanished from the revamped page. It's still on this international page, however.
http://crummysocks.com
Microsoft is still promoting PlaysForSure. "Same Compatibility Promise - Different Name".
What part of "false advertising" did you not understand.
Umm, actually the GP's analogy is much more accurate because MS isn't revoking the licenses that already exist on computers that are now licensed. Therefore, you can still use the files until the computer dies or until the car breaks down, which is what the GP's analogy indicates. Your analogy would indicate that no music could be accessed come September, and that's simply wrong.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
Find it, use it, be happy.
No more "activation" - I doubt Microsoft has the moral fiber to disable activation in their last patch.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Know a lot of people who worked like crazy to get PlaysForSure to work on the BluRay stack. That was a huge project. When these huge standards go out of business, years of work & 14 hour days vaporizes. That's the reality standards.
I can't believe that the presidents and CEOs of the music labels and the RIAA are still in their positions. Blunder after blunder after blunder and they still have their jobs! I need to get a job like that (or weather man or stock analyst) where I can be wrong much more than I'm right and still have a job!
They tried to kill an evolving technology again. It has never worked before so they tried it again. Guess what? It didn't work again.
They then attacked their customers rather than innovate and provide a value added suite of add-ons to the music. It didn't work so they decide to continue the litigation game. Guess what? It didn't work again.
They could have kept the CD alive but they chose not to. The movie industry has managed to keep the DVD and even the VHS Tape world alive by giving the consumer more for less. The music industry decided long ago that greed was more precious than customer satisfaction.
Now DRM will kill some music forever in the future. Long after copyrights expire (if they aren't changed again), the music won't have DRM keys around to unlock it. Future generations will not have the music to enjoy. Was it worth the price?
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
you can download a stripper
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Haida Manga
Well... the keys part of the metaphor kinda worked. You needs those keys to start the car/play the music.
Your ad here.
Will this affect many people at all? I don't think I know anyone who bought Plays-for-Sure(TM) tracks.
How many customers were there?
PAYING customers to boot too !! last shit they pulled was pulling the plug on bCentral ecommerce service they were running, many of you who are not affiliated with ecommerce industry or web development havent probably heard it. they gave the customers only 1 month's notice to pack up their stores and leave or migrate to the ecommerce service they dumped the customers on, which didnt have enough experience with oscommerce framework they were planning to move everybody on, causing a lot of horrible experience for the store owners and lost sales. a lot of people couldnt pack up their 2000+ product, thousands of customer data containing stores in sufficient time if they wanted to move, hell, even many of the stores who let the new contractor to do their migration were messed up.
this is the microsoft way. if you havent learned it up to this date, you are either a fanboi or were living in a cave.
Read radical news here
Or just a DRM. "Digital Rights Minivan."
Your ad here.
The Ogg Vorbis breaths have a few moments in which they can be legitimately smug and shake their rio players at us fools who use Fairplay or Zune, or use that patented MP3 format.
Okay.. times up. Now back to reality.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I wonder if anyone has a copy of the term of service for this...to see if MS covered their asses on this possibility?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
There's always one, isn't there. Some who just can't resist.
And people would call it a "DRM Van". Digital Rights Minivan Van.
Also if you tried to circumvent your OWN van's security, the DRM Partyvan would turn up at your door.
Your ad here.
Good info but I have to ask, are other people's slashdot comments really worth that much of your time?
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
I have a solution. The solution is available in packs of 100 for ten dollars. It is called.... CD-R. Just burn them and re-rip. Of course there will be a loss in quality, but somehow I doubt that the MSN music was encoded in anything higher than 128Kbps.
totally agree!
Donde Ser Geek No Duele
As for MSN DRM going dark it makes just another example of how DRM equals screwed. Not to mention why anyone would pay good money for DRM audio that'll suck the life right out of your MP3 player is beyond me. Just to see how much overhead it caused for myself I took a non-DRMed set of WMA tracks and put them on my new Sandisk M260. On any of the 3 Sandisk M2XX players my family owns (gotta love how you can change batteries while on the road!) we get an average of 17-20 hours of play, depending on how much track skipping we do. After setting the player to only play the WMA tracks and putting in a fresh battery I BARELY got 11 hours. And if that is WMA without DRM I'd hate to see how much less time I would get with DRM.
Has anyone tried their MP3 player with DRMed WMA like that on MSN? How much quicker did it suck down your battery? Does Apple's Fairplay suck the life out of iPods like WMA sucks it out of MP3 players? But of course this is my 02c based on my own experience with WMA files, YMMV.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Neither analogy is quite right...
Your version implies that you can keep using the car until the car dies, that isn't the case (that would be like saying "you can keep using the files until the files break")
Maybe something like "you can keep driving the car, until your garage door breaks" would be better?
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
I have a solution. The solution is available in packs of 100 for ten dollars.
I have a better solution that is working just fine. Boycott DRM. If it fails in the marketplace, it will go away. We have a vote. It's the dollar. Vote wisely and often.
I have no PC at home using WGA. Sometimes you get outvoted for the mainstream product, but you don't have to buy it.
The truth shall set you free!
That'd be a great idea, except for the fact that even a rudimentary workaround such as the one you describe is, in fact, illegal because of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. There is no exception for circumvention done for the purpose of fair uses, such as playing your music in your car, or even making a backup copy. Even though the right to perform actions such as these is guaranteed in the Audio Home Recording Act, the DMCA allows anyone producing any copyrighted content (read anyone) to make it illegal to do anything with it in any form other than that which is prescribed by the producer.
My fellow Americans, let's restore the death penalty for child rapists. Let's do it . . . for the children.
Now here is my big concern: The same thing could happen for games, with Valve building up an ever-increasing selection of titles on Steam.
...
When I buy a Steam game, I pay money and then the game is permanently activated in my Steam account. Aside from the fact I can't transfer it to another account, and Valve can shutdown my account at will, IF Steam ever did "go dark", then I wouldn't have any games left
It's worse for games because unlike music, you really have no choice (for certain games) whether you want to buy them on Steam or not.
Actually, iTunes itself supports burning songs from the iTunes Music Store to CD.
And the CD produced is a perfectly normal, non-DRM'd CD.
Another problem is that the economic system of the western world is based upon competition between different people/businesses offering essentially the same product, and thus having to compete with each other on quality and price.
As a natural result of this, it is expected that the majority of businesses will fail to be profitable and therefore go under. While unfortunate for the people involved in the business, for most people this is fine -- it simply means they weren't offering a compelling enough product compared to the competition.
For a consumer of DRM-encumbered media, this is a highly undesirable event. Therefore, consumers will actually desire to minimise competition -- new players offering better pricing or better quality of service are a lot less compelling, because if they fail to become profitable before their initial cash reserves run out, anything you've bought from them instantly becomes worthless.
As such, DRM is essentially anti-capitalist and will naturally lead to a monopoly, or at best oligopoly situation. It's no wonder Big Business is so desperate to get people to accept it. It's never been about protecting artists' rights, it's always been about creating lock-in.
If they're not going to be giving out anymore keys, than you might as well crack the DRM and they won't do anything about it.
-- Darren VanBuren
In this case, you're incorrect; the license specifically allows burning DRM-encumbered tracks from the iTunes Store to audio CD, as long as you don't burn a single playlist more than 7 times (you can burn the tracks as many times as you want, but you'll have to create a new playlist).
If you were to re-rip this audio CD with lossy encoding (MP3, AAC, Vorbis, etc.) there would of course be a loss of quality. Also, you can make as many copies as you like of the original DRM-encumbered M4P files, but that's not relevant to this discussion.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
You can do that with M$ DRM too.
It's laughable to think MS would do it, but wtf? Why not? They aren't going to make a nickel more off of their scheme. Why not gpl the servers and no doubt some kind souls would host it for a_while on some crap servers some where. I mean MS should host it themselves but if they are just going to be complete dicks it's the least they could do.
...is that the bastards had the audacity to call it "PlaysForSure".
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
The only thing that we know for sure is that that music won't play anymore. :P
If you sell or license something that:
a) isn't advertised as limited in any context of time of ownership (i.e. a lease or a rental), and
b) choose to discontinue any services necessary to preserve a consumer's rightful access to said product, YOU MUST UNLOCK IT UNDER CONSIDERABLE PENALTY OF LAW.
If a company folds without fulfilling this obligation, the necessary assets (including the DRM code) are seized to allow for the successful discharging of this responsibility, with priority over any other creditor.
If there is one outcome from this, it should be to force companies to warn people of what they're paying for. There should be notices, saying that the product may become temporarily or even permanently unusable at any time. DRM is not evil, like the OP suggested, just a mistake with unforeseen consequences (OK, perhaps not unforeseen by anyone with any foresight). It's high time people truly knew what they were paying for.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
They're going to lose money from jaded customers, from word-of-mouth from said jaded customers, and possibly even certain people refusing to buy Microsoft products. The best possible situation for them is to keep their servers running and keep their vendor lock-in. Anything less is a financial loss.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I have 2 votes then. It's call the British Pound. :)
Get your own free personal location tracker
I've commented on this before.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I sometimes wonder if you are yourself a part of twitter's multi-faceted personality, posting to draw attention to his posts. Sort of like Norman's mother in Psycho.
Your commitment to fighting the injustice which is twitter using several accounts on Slashdot is awesome, and unrelenting, but the best thing to do with someone like that is to ignore them when they say something stupid, not to give them more attention.
People game accounts on sites like this all the time, some of them are scripts, some looking for notoriety in some small way, some just bored, but it really doesn't matter; because it's just a website.
on the evils of DRM now if itunes where to implode and turn off the authorization servers the masses would be in full rebellion. in this case most people will barely notice except the 6 people that actually signed up and bought music from MSN Music.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
No, Microsoft will not use activation as a tool to force people to upgrade. Activation is merely an anti-piracy tool, nothing else.
Microsoft will also support the activation of Windows XP throughout its life and will likely provide an update that turns activation off at the end of the product's lifecycle so users would no longer be required to activate the product.
Personally I think this is fantastic news. I am sorry to the MSN customers who are being shafted by this but it proves that DRM is crap. I have had dozens of discussions with people over the past few years (since iTMS) about how DRM is evil and everybody always replies with "Yeah but will never do that! Stop being a silly paranoid fool". Examples like this are just ammo in the fight against DRM. Tell everybody who supports DRM'd media about it.
Also part of me wonders if Microsoft are doing this on purpose? I know it sounds weird as Microsoft are not anti-DRM however they run thousands of redundant servers but keep them around because it makes no difference to them. So why retire just these servers? I find it difficult to believe they see very high load. If you read between the lines it also reads as if they are doing this to damage DRM more than anything else.
I have an even better (more eviller) * solution:
My solution is available in packs of units of whatever scale of value you may use, but they will never completely add up to match any purchase you'll ever make. No matter what you buy -- you'll always have unused units left over, or not enough units to buy what you currently desire. By this evingenious invention I shall rule the... what? Someone already did this?
Oh damn and confound this broken Time Machine!_____________
(*) "eviller", "more eviller", and "evingenious" are (c) + TM 3003 Prof. Farnsworth
sig? Oh, that sig...
Yes, just don't spend it here in Britain itself else it'll only buy you half a vote ;)
Boo hoo! I only have a Euro, which means I have 0.79 the voting power of you.
0.80....
0.81...
0.82.....
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
I have a solution. The solution is available in packs of 100 for ten dollars. It is called.... CD-R. Just burn them and re-rip. ...Which is illegal in the UK. So if you're going to break the law you may as well just crack the DRM (which is easier and cheaper anyway).
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I imagine it would have a similar impact on an ipod, since the extra cpu power will be needed to decrypt the files...
All the resources being wasted on drm, making players more expensive but inferior (less battery life). DRM is completely anti-consumer, and the sooner the masses wake up and realise the better.
Meanwhile, pirates will continue to enjoy drm-free media on cheaper drm-free audio players (no need to license or implement any drm schemes).
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Well, this has to be the best advertisement for Zune ever.
...
Or maybe not
Oh Microsoft, you silly goose.
If this wasn't me I would mod you up for those!
On a point of pedantry, it's the DMCA, not the DCMA. Although I suppose Digitial Copyright Millennium Act does have a kind of ring to it.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I can envision in the future, the "history of computer games" will have this "dark age" which "not much is known about" in the era of ~2007-20xx because the game makers back then wouldn't let people take physical copies of their games.
Remove the "of computer games" part and you've got one of the major subplots in Charlie Stross's recent novel "Glasshouse".
Also relevant comment in another recent slashdot thread.
I think "disabled activation" means "you can't activate your copy of XP any more" not "you don't need to activate it any more".
So, when do you think Microsoft will turn off XP? 2010? 2015?
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Apple fanboys are mentally incapable of boycotting Apple. Why do you think they're stuck with iTMS DRM and horrifically overpriced, DRM'ed Intel hardware?
but they will never completely add up to match any purchase you'll ever make.
Sounds like the legendary collusion between the hotdog packagers and the bun manufacturers.
Except that many of these music stores (unlike Apple) have DRM flags set with the "Do not allow burning to CD" flag.
MS won't provide a utility (too easy to apply to DRM from other stores), but plenty of utilities already exist to achieve this goal.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
you can download a stripper
Oh my, can you do it on the internets nowadays? I think I'll never leave my comfy basement again!"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds !"
I love that name. Not many product names manage to include a promise in them -- which is then broken.
=P
http://kered.org
Nobody needs the RIAA and it's members anymore.
... And just visiting their indie-publisher to test the link tells me I'm probably going to do some music shopping this afternoon.
A friend of mine takes every chance to make a point of him not buy from RIAA companies anymore. He buys independant and small label only since a few years now. You get the stuff as download from the web, in FLAC quality if you wish, it's all non-drm and the variety is *huge*. Something for every taste. There are countless websites offering DRM free music that way. A good place to start is Magnatune. I recently bought an album from the German indie chillout/ambient crew moodorama. It's great. And those 10 Euros for an entire album go straight to the band.
Bottom line:
NOBODY needs the RIAA crew anymore - not even people like me, listening to stuff like chillout(!!). Especially not the people technically savy enough to know what a piece of crap DRM is and what dickheads the people are forcing it on to the end-users. I.E. all of us slashdotters. SO STOP F*CKING BUYING/LISTENING TO RIAA CRAP! Problem solved.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Just yesterday I was looking for a song that I wanted to buy. It's not available on iTunes Plus (DRM Free) or the Amazon MP3 store.
I found a copy of the whole album used on Amazon for $.96.
So I legally bought the whole copy protection free album for less than the cost of the single DRM laden song.
I felt kinda odd because I haven't purchased a physical CD in over 10 years.
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
You're talking about MS here. My money is on "they did".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Could it be that you read that wrong? Currently, my Euro buys me 1.6 green bucks. Wait, 1.7... 2.1.
:)
I have to go!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Corporate key do get expired, if you run updates. THis is from expierence. THe compagny gets a program to roll out taht updates they key. I gues the company key got leaked or something like that.
If you run some pc/laptop that is not connected to the compagny lan , and update it after a year or so, it ets a invalid key.
Only official way to solve this is to reinstall XP (well, rolling out fresh images is far less work for support than fixing things)
If my computer is still doing what I need it to do in 2014, then I don't want the OS being turned off.
The idea, even in principle, is very anti-consumer and wrong.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's lossy because burning compressed music to CD does not magically make the quality improve to lossless WAV. Ripping it again to a lossy format then loses a bit more quality as the compressed music is re-compressed.
It's analogous to saving an image in JPG, taking a screenshot of the image (BMP), then saving as JPG again.
>You find it reasonable to dig out a CD(-R, erase), burn, rip, encode, and tag every album or track you buy?
I'm surprised someone hasn't made software that rips to a virtual CD, re-rips, re-encodes, and tags all in one step.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
With Apple, you may be locked in, but that's better than being locked out! At least Apple wants customers, instead of wanting to get rid of them.
It just goes to show that Microsoft does not really care about music, customers, or even really trying to provide their customers a service.
And I find it ironic that they're not even trying to "migrate" their customers to their latest schizophrenic, half-baked music scheme now...
Well, to its credit, it is crackalackin'...
Xen?
Bochs?
Qemu?
Come on, you can't be saying that hooky blabbermouth VMware is the only option...can you?
Or a thimbleful of diesel. £1.19 a litre! Sheesh. I'll let some American work that out in $/gallon. Then they won't grumble about $3/gallon. Here's something to help you on your way.
Get your own free personal location tracker
You really should get that looked at by a doctor...
Probably not :)
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
Too bad for RIAA that those provisions are about as enforceable as marijuana prohibition....
Maybe we need a "Piracy Czar" and a "War on Piracy". That should do the trick after a few billion dollars and a couple of decades.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It would be a DMCA violation for Microsoft to traffic in such a tool. Doing the right thing is illegal.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Almost all of my music is media shifted vinyl, CDs or its downloaded DRM-less from the PMN (the podsafe music network) so saying that the monopoly is to ignore the fact that the iTMS has sold X billion DRMed tunes while X' billion tunes were ripped the same way. (I have a bookcase full of 'archival' CDs and another full of vinyl.)
:-)
I'd be interested if someone worked the storage requirement of all of Apple's iTMS sales versus the total storage space available on all the iPods currently out there.
You ARE correct in stating that songs downloaded from the iTMS have Apple's DRM, (at least until you burn them to a CD [CD-RW anyone,], wipe the originals = and re-import them.
Take your "DRM only" crap outta here.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Why not just post the full link?
...or so I've been told.
Your ear can hear 20-20k Hz pure sinusoidal sound, but you never hear pure sinusoidal sound.
The blending of several higher frequency tones resulting in an average 22k Hz is what you hear at your top end, but your audio equipment has to be able to handle up to 96k Hz to reproduce audio adequately.
That said, I had a Nakamichi cassette desk that darn near could, well, until the tape degraded and introduced wow or flutter or hiss.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Didn't see a reason why in the summary or article, but managed to find this with the following:
"every time there is an OS upgrade, the DRM equation gets complex very quickly," said Bennett, general manager of entertainment, video, and sports for MSN. "Every time, you saw support issues. People would call in because they couldn't download licenses. We had to write new code, new configurations each time...We really believe that, going forward, the best thing to do is focus exclusively on Zune."
Paraphrasing, then: We are f**king you, the valued customer, because we can't write an OS that doesn't implode our own DRM. You should buy something else from us instead!
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
£1.19 per liter in $ per gallon == $8.8308/gallon.
That sucks!
Dear servants. We know we promised to actually give you what you paid for, but we decided we don't want to, so at some time after August, we'll be breaking in to your house and stealing that music back.
We're sure you won't mind because you've always been such a good doggie lapping up whatever slop we care to splatter into your bowl.
So quit whining and cough up some cash. Daddy needs a new senator...
I plan on still using my Core2duo notebook running XP in 5 years. I hope Wine will allow me to run my Adobe CS3 apps smoothly by then.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Right, right.
Now all you have to worry about is the feds turning off activation for your "free to walk around" program.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This is exactly what MS recommends the users to do. Two problems that arise here: You and I now know that this format will close down soon and we both are able to do just this, if we bought from there. My father surely doesn't get "the memo", hence no chance for him to prepare his files.
Second, and this is another nice evil twist to this story, according to German copyright laws, you're not allowed to do so! MS might recommend all they want, they can't "recommend" a law away.
This clearly shows how stupid both DRM and current copyright laws are.
So you have to spend $25 to get a new key cut by the dealership.
Only $25? Whew! To get a new key for our PT Cruiser it's like 10x that much.
That of course is one thing I can't stand about newer cars. I miss being able to get a car key duped for $1 at Walmart instead of $100+ or $200+ at the dealership
DRM for cars, I'd never thought about it that way.
I quote others only in order the better to express myself. -- Michel de Montaigne
More like, if you migrate to Vista and then decide it sucks, and want to upgrade back to XP, sucks to be you if you have any music. So better just stick with what you have!
Or a thimbleful of diesel. £1.19 a litre! Sheesh. I'll let some American work that out in $/gallon. Then they won't grumble about $3/gallon.
Eh, we all pay the same price anyway. It's just that the US government subsidizes the fuel price, which we pay back through taxes. Or through borrowing from China.
How much is that in Disneyland Dollars?