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."

Comments

DRM

[mosiadh]

Proof that DRM is inherently evil, even for the MS fanbois.

Re:DRM

[catwh0re]

In the past, the argument against perpetual authorisation was along the lines of "if the music retailer goes under" then all your music will be lost. This, however, is proof that only a change in business strategy can render all your purchased music defunct. There could also be legal/authorisation issues if music labels pull out of the store. (Or in MS's case swap from strategy to another.)

Re:DRM

[nine-times]

Yes, this is a perfect example against those who would say, "DRM isn't a problem unless you're a pirate." I'm sure there were people who paid good money to buy audio tracks. Not rent, *buy*.

I know, I know, make whatever legalistic argument you want, but when people paid there money, they had an expectation that they were *buying* the music. Therefore, deactivating these servers is effectively stealing those people's property, much more so than "pirates" do. When I "pirate" downloads a music track, they haven't deprived the rightful owner of the use of that music. However, when Microsoft disables their servers, the rightful owners are deprived of their ability to listen to that music.

Of course I'd like to see DRM disappear. Short of that, companies should at least be required to offer the means to crack their DRM should they ever deactivate their servers.

A side question: can Microsoft really not afford to just keep these servers running? I guess they're having some problems with Vista being a flop and all, but how expensive can it be to maintain these servers? On the other hand, I don't particularly blame Microsoft for this situation. It's an inherent problem with DRM, and it was bound to happen to someone sooner or later.

Re:DRM

[LWATCDR]

Backwards I am afraid.
DRM isn't a problem if your a pirate. It is only a problem if you are customer.

Re:DRM

[kimvette]

Which is why they say "Own it on CD today" or in the case of movies "own it on DVD today" ?

Re:DRM

[dgatwood]

Here's a thought: class action lawsuit naming both Microsoft and the record labels as codefendants. Demand that they make available DRM-free copies of all music that has been legally purchased or at a minimum provide free copies based on a more up-to-date DRM mechanism. It's time to force the industry to pay the true cost of DRM: maintaining support for it forever.

Once that is over, we should push for a law that requires all DRM-laden music sellers to be bonded for enough money to cover the cost of maintaining the DRM scheme indefinitely (that is, operating off of only a portion of the interest earned on the principal).

Re:DRM

[ceoyoyo]

Ahrr, there ain't no DRM on my music, matey!

Re:DRM

[t0y]

We rightfully own licenses.

Re:DRM

[DaedalusHKX]

You do realize that Microsoft might actually be trying to demonstrate that DRM is indeed a tool of evil.

And not just any kind of evil... but EEEEEVVEEEEELLL.. kind of evil.

Well, all I can say is simple. Expect that sooner or later, people are going to get a MAJOR shaft in the arse for locking themselves into servitude to any particular big shop. It is to be expected.

Re:DRM

[funkdancer]

... and they wonder why people turn to piracy...? The mind boggles.

Re:DRM

[UnknowingFool]

Also don't MS partners suffer too? If Windows cannot authenticate the music, will it not play on their music players too. Why should they care? Cause they will have lots of angry customer who will blame them for something which is out of their control.

Re:DRM

[nine-times]

Most of these online stores, even the stores with DRM, tell you you're "buying" the album or track. You know, like before you actually pay money, you click on some sort of button that often says something like "buy this album". It doesn't say "rent" or "license".

Now there may well be something buried in the license agreement when you sign up for the store that says, "you aren't actually buying anything, you're just licensing the right listen them, and we can revoke that right whenever we want." Still, the way the stores are representing the transaction as "buying" the album, and that's the way consumers understand the transaction.

If there isn't any legal consequence for the owners of online "stores" for this sort of misrepresentation, there should be.

Re:DRM

[packeteer]

And just as we are bound to the license so are they. Technically they own the music and we own a license to it. That should't mean either party can do whatever they want.

Re:DRM

[Xtravar]

I disagree, the retailer going under could render it defunct just as well. "Going under" is a change in business strategy!

Re:DRM

[EdIII]

How on earth did the parent get modded Troll?

I, along with many others, have been saying this same statement for years. Nobody actually "owns" their music. They own certain contractual rights to music owned by other people, also referred to as an intellectual property license.

The comment itself, is neither supporting the music industry or the consumers. It is a simple statement of fact. Four words no less, which are actually insightful, if anything at all. I personally, have always said there is a problem with the consumer's understanding of exactly what it is they are purchasing.

Till MP3 really started to take off, as well as the Internet, a physical CD was the predominant medium that you kept music on. It was not till after 2000, at least, that making 1:1 copies of any CD was viable economically. This was a concern for various industries, since there was no degradation in quality, as was inherent to the process of duplicating analogue mediums.

Now that the Internet has become so ubiquitous, it is a truly trivial matter to transfer around very large amounts of digital media, a large part of it in MP3 format. Physical mediums are disappearing incredibly fast. MP3 players have replaced them as the predominant storage medium, and it is interesting to note that the media player and storage medium have combined into a single device.

So although the playing field has changed dramatically, the consumer has remained ignorant. The average consumer has always construed that their physical ownership of a piece of plastic effectively gave them actual ownership of a piece of music. This was never true from day one. It is not the consumer's fault either. The music industry was never very interested in explaining the purchased license rights to the consumer. From the consumer's point of view, they gave somebody money in return for being able to listen to a piece of music FOREVER. Whether or not you agree with that statement is 100% irrelevant. I have met maybe 1 or 2 people out of ONE HUNDRED that actually had a more sophisticated understanding of intellectual property rights and license agreements. Want to guess how many were lawyers? So to discuss this, you have to be considering the understanding of the average person, the lowest common denominator. In this case, the lowest common denominator still thinks they "own" music. Not just their lifetime either. My own father believed that a CD, if properly taken care of, could be passed down from generation to generation. He must own 5,000 of them. Being an intelligent man, he reasoned that in a decade or two it would be very easy to maintain and backup his entire library of music and transfer it to a different medium. He did not expect that legal counsel for Sony would openly call him a criminal and a thief for daring to maintain his investment.

Which brings us to a more nefarious motivation, which was that the consumer would have to purchase copies over and over when the physical medium itself failed. Once again, this situation was created out of the consumer's ignorance. Where was the copy of the license agreement? Where was the fine print? Where was anything that ever described the rights of a consumer with their music in layman's terms?

The music industry as a whole is getting their "just desserts". Maybe they could not have seen the future, but they are more responsible than the consumer for perpetuating this nebulous cloud that is the ownership and the licensing rights of music.

When it comes to DRM'd Music, there may well be wholly different contracts that were signed between the content providers and the consumer. I would expect that to be so, even though I do not know directly. I was never naive enough to sign one of those contracts and buy that crap. I don't say that to insult anyone who did either. I doubt that they read those agreements either, and reasonably expected to be able to listen to their music forever too.

So I hate to say I told you so to a bunch of people, but that wa

Re:DRM

[Fweeky]

But, it's not as big of a deal as people make it out to be - the DRM can be circumvented by burning to and ripping from a CD.

"But, this reduces audio quality!" you say? I figure if you were that concerned about audio quality, you wouldn't be buying compressed music from MSN, iTunes, etc. You figure wrong. Modest bitrate lossy files are made to be transparent to most people, but recompressing it is probably going to introduce noticable artifacts for many people who would otherwise be perfectly happy.

Also, what the fuck? You find it reasonable to dig out a CD(-R, erase), burn, rip, encode, and tag every album or track you buy? Especially when you're already paying most of the price of a physical copy? Excuse me if I find that a completely idiotic suggestion; I buy music online because it's convenient and fast, this oft brought up suggestion makes it neither.

Re:DRM

[Garridan]

With Apple, the logic is, and always has been, "Don't look at us, look at MICROSOFT! Like, OMG, they're so evil! And our stuff is so pretty and friendly and nice and easy to use, so don't look at us. Did I mention, Microsoft is EVIL?"

And now, I fear that Google is doing the same.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I, along with many others, have been saying this same statement for years. Nobody actually "owns" their music. They own certain contractual rights to music owned by other people, also referred to as an intellectual property license.

Except, of course, that that isn't true either.

Nobody owns music, because music is not property. You can own a copy of some music, stored in some physical form. The law reserves the right to make certain uses of that copy to certain people, for example, via the copyright in the piece and in any particular performance of it. But the record industry or copyright holder no more own music I've paid for than I do, because music in intangible and not subject to ownership.

Now, if the record industry have taken someone's money in return for giving them a copy of some music, and then subsequently undermine the consumer's ability to enjoy that music in an expected way, then that is changing the rules. If the original contract, implied or otherwise, granted the rights to enjoy the music in normal fashion, then taking away this facility is breaking the contract and I don't see why whoever took the money shouldn't be liable for part of the cost representing the value lost. If the original contract contained some lawyerly weasel words about this possibility, then I think there is a decent ethical (and possibly legal too) argument that such terms would not normally be expected by someone buying their copy of the music and the one-sided contract terms should be invalidated.

This is simple contract law and ethics, and DRM and the technical means involved don't really matter other than as the means to the end. As with all technology, DRM in itself is ethically neutral; it's how it's used that is ethical or evil. In this case, for example, there would be no problem now if upon selling the DRM'd copies of the music to customers, the provider had also been compelled to lodge a DRM-free version in escrow, to be released in circumstances such as this so that customers did not lose out. It's the way that no such arrangement appears to be in place here and the law seems to do nothing to protect the consumer at this point that makes the situation unjust, not the DRM.

Re:DRM

[electrosoccertux]

In light of MS's recent comments about turning Windows 7 into a modular OS, and making it subscription based, lets look at any incentives MS might have in cutting off people from their legally purchased music.

I wonder if they're doing this on purpose to scare people away from paying once; to later introduce a subscription music service. Instead of buy once, play forever; buy forever, and play as long as you pay.

It would be very sly of them to scare people away from "buying once" into "paying continually, and if they decide to pull the product, well who cares, you're not paying anymore then after all". I'd have to say this shows incredible foresight if this is what they're aiming for; doing this to leave a sour taste in people's mouth with Buy Once software schemes; aiming for a more tame response to a subscription only Windows7. People would think "well what if they pull the activation servers on Windows Vista like they did the music? Maybe I DO want a subscription service..."

I once thought MS was stupid. Now, they may be more ingenious* than I ever imagined.

*It's probably just some Exec deciding they're not making enough money.

Re:DRM

[Znork]

Nobody actually "owns" their music. They own certain contractual rights to music owned by other people, also referred to as an intellectual property license.

This is false. You own the media and the contents on that media. Copyright is merely a legal burden on the right to copy those contents; it doesn't change your actual ownership.

The most obvious way to demonstrate this is to consider the border condition when copyright on a CD you own expires. There is no change in ownership, there is no eminent domain done on someone elses property, there is no termination of a contract. Yet suddenly you can do exactly anything and everything you want with your property, including selling copies, charging for plays of it, etc.

Re:DRM

[LaskoVortex]

We don't own artist's music.

Right. We can't resell copies of it. In other words, we don't own the copyright.

But you would probably further argue that ownership means the right to listen to it, correct? Or would you lump this in with copy? That is, to listen to it, it needs to be transformed into a copy as sound waves before it hits our ears and becomes a copy of the music in our memory? But does it stop there? Are we in possession of stolen music if we listen to it in our heads at will (as in "that song won't get out of my head--you know the one, from the Charlie Brown movie where they went to camp").

But, where does it end, Charlie Brown? Is this what artists intend? I would argue, having written some songs myself, and having my own art grace the cover of magazines, that this is not what artists intend. I would suspect that other artists are like me in that they feel like their work exists for the world and that its value is not in the money required to purchase a copy of it, but in the pleasure or thought it provokes.

Re:DRM

[electrictroy]

I don't really care what Microsoft's motive is,
I only care that I have $1000 worth of songs that are now worthless.
That's fraud.

If I was a lawyer, I'd file a class-action lawsuit for the benefit of the MSN Store's customers, demanding either a full refund, or the ability to download a perpetual license with no expiration date.

Brilliant

[conteXXt]

simply brilliant.

At last Microsoft makes the case AGAINST DRM.

Thank you gentlemen.

Re:Brilliant

[Artuir]

Too bad absolutely nothing is gonna change, huh?

Now If

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

They would only turn of the servers that supply Vista "updates"

Re:suppositories

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that we're talking about DRM, the parent poster is strangely on topic.

Within terms of agreement?

[DoofusOfDeath]

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?

Re:Within terms of agreement?

[Khyber]

It won't affect those of us in California with nice consumer protection laws and prior case law against End-User License Agreements as far as I'm aware of. We'll have our compensation somehow.

Re:Within terms of agreement?

[belg4mit]

The format isn't obsolete, the dude you gave the key to your record vault to has gone and chucked it in the trash.
Not being able to get to the media is different from not being able to use the media if it's accessible.

Re:Within terms of agreement?

[AndyCR]

Do the original terms of the sale/license agreement permit Microsoft to do this?
That clause should go over well. "We reserve the right to deny you use of what you paid for whenever and however we wish."

They are so quick to apply property metaphors to data (copying as "theft", intellectual works as "intellectual property", finite distribution of an infinite object, etc.). Why aren't they applying it here? How would you feel if your toaster disappeared because Sunbeam decided not to make toasters anymore? Furthermore, how would you feel if a little card came with your toaster saying that might happen?

Re:Within terms of agreement?

[sqrt(2)]

EULAs are legally questionable at best. It's not certain if they are even enforceable at all. A EULA certainly does not hold as much weight as a real legal contract, which is what companies like MS are trying to make them out to be.

iTunes

[eldavojohn]

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.

Never forget that DRM means you are dependent on a company ... as long as you want to be able to access that music, the company has to let you.

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 ... we all already know the majority of slashdotters have the balls/lack the brains to defy the RIAA blatantly in that manner.

Ob "Thank you, Microsoft!"

[vrmlguy]

I keep trying to explain to people why DRM is bad. This makes my job easier.

don't worry...

[timmarhy]

... bittorrent has them backed up for you.

Re:don't worry...

[ricree]

They would still be able to get you for seeding it to others.

Fixed/Correct link to original article

[FrozenFrog]

Seems the link in the article is incorrect (or has changed). Correct link is: MS to nuke music DRM

Sucks to be you

[Firas Zirie]

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?

Internet Archive.

[twitter]

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.

Re:Internet Archive.

[iggy_mon]

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.

i wonder why this comment is modded -1?

www.archive.org not only has DRM free live and studio music, but copyright expired movies, books, etc, etc etc. it's an amazing site and parent deserves to be modded up not down for making an interesting comment.

Re:Internet Archive.

[willyhill]

He posts at -1 for trolling. Now that he is at negative karma, he organizes shill sessions with his seven accounts to game the moderation system.

Anyone replying to any thread in which twitter is posting opens themselves up to be ganged by a gaggle of "people" who amazingly never cease to agree with each other and make the same grammar and spelling mistakes.

Unfortunately most moderators don't realize this and still mod him up.

Re:Internet Archive.

[bh_doc]

A legitimately informative post should be modded as such, regardless of the poster.

Hm...

[ChinggisK]

This doesn't just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize Am I the only one that read that the first time as meaning that there are only five former customers of MSN Music?


Sorry, been a long day studying for exams.

Hey, my CD still works...

[tjstork]

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.

"MSN Music DRM Servers Going Dark In September"

[$RANDOMLUSER]

So, only rap after that then, huh?

/ducks

sorry, sorry, sorry, had to...

Re:Did Anyone Else See This Coming?

[bwy]

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.

That is a pretty good point, actually. I guess it proves that being successful is something you have to work every minute of every day at. Just because something good happened to you yesterday and now you have a lot of $$$ in the bank doesn't make it any easier to be successful at something else tomorrow.

In Microsoft's case, they obviously did something right to get most of the PC's in the world running their OS. But they've had some pretty big flops over the last few years. Proof that pumping money into something isn't enough.

Free Brown Zunes for everyone?

[tlambert]

"We'll have our compensation somehow."

Free Brown Zunes for everyone?

-- Terry

Awesome!

[Sneftel]

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?

Re:Awesome!

[Tavor]

Only on Slashdot could the bleeding sarcasm in parent comment be modded "Insightful" or "Interesting".

Re:Awesome!

[HairyCanary]

On the bright side, that means there is hope for your comment, too.

ONLY GOOD THINGS COME OUT OF IT!!!

[eiapoce]

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.

Re:Why is this news? Because it's Microsoft.

[sonofusion82]

I don't see why this is really big news. In fact, this really has got _nothing_ to do with DRM per se. For those who can't see the forest for the trees: * Company X makes product Y and sells to the public * Company X does not make enough profit selling product Y and decides to discontinue selling it * 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? No, it is not about M$. It is about DRM. For most cars, even after the manufacturer discontinued the car, we can still repair the car and keep it going for years even with 3rd party or 2nd grade spare parts. But with DRM it is more like, after Ford discontinuing its Aerostar minivan line, the car engine will never start again after another driver tries to drive it.

Re:Why is this news? Because it's Microsoft.

[Waffle Iron]

How is this any different than, say, Ford discontinuing its Aerostar minivan line?

Unlike DRMed music, it's not a federal offense for someone service your minivan when it breaks.

In the immortal words of Nelson:

[Socguy]

HA HA!

Not quite

[symbolset]

I believe the term "Plays For Now(tm)" is more appropriate. Goes for all DRM content too.

I don't get it...

[Joce640k]

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...

Re:Why is this news? Because it's Microsoft.

[nine-times]

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.

Re:Why is this news? Because it's Microsoft.

[canajin56]

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.

PlaysForSure

[daveime]

Isn't this classed as deceptive advertising ?

PlaysForAsLongAsWeTellYouItPlaysNowFuckOff would have been more appropriate.

Re:Why is this news? Because it's Microsoft.

[corsec67]

Aerostars they already sold would still work perfectly fine.

Apparently you missed the part where it is a Ford?

I felt...

[actionbastard]

a great disturbance on the Internet, as if millions of Plays For Sure musicplayers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Re:I felt...

[compro01]

millions?

Re:suppositories

[fyngyrz]

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.

Perfect Example why DRM sucks... HOWEVER.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

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.

Is MS marketing really that stupid?

[Lieutenant_Dan]

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.

Re:Why is this news? Because it's Microsoft.

[pfleming]

How is this any different than, say, Ford discontinuing its Aerostar minivan line? When Ford discontinues the Aerostar your kids and your aging poodle with the bladder control problem won't be locked inside with no way to get out. That is assuming that you want to listen to your kids or the dog again.

Re:even for M$.

[ls -la]

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.

Re:suppositories

[schnikies79]

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.

Plays For Sure...

[DieByWire]

Just not for long.

Re:even for M$.

[fwarren]

so I'd say they're not likely to lose a penny.

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.

Re:suppositories

[urcreepyneighbor]

MS has stated that they would release a patch that would permanently disable XP's activation requirements when final support ends. Define "final".

Will Microsoft shut off product activation for XP after June? No, that would be crazy. While no one has said this will happen, it's conceivable that Windows could shut down product activation for XP at some point. But that would only happen after XP reaches its end-of-support term (when all support plans expire). The good news for you: That happens on April 8, 2014, which should be plenty of time to get the kinks worked out of Vista-or switch to a Mac, Linux, or anything else. Bottom line: Your copy of XP will work, totally legally, for at least six more years.

Source: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/25252

There's no point in waiting until 2014. ;\

Re:Why is this news? Because it's Microsoft.

[enoz]

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.

Piracy

[aliquis]

Everything are so much easier as a pirate. You even got your backup online, so to speak.

Unlikely.

[ZPWeeks]

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.

Re:Unlikely.

[dgatwood]

The reality is that copies of music are sold, not licensed. Title 17 does not provide for any licensing of a work to someone for use in the home. Search for the word "license" in Title 17 if you don't believe me. Every instance refers to licensing the right to copy it. The right to play a legally produced copy of music that was legally obtained is pretty soundly covered under "Fair Use". Therefore, a third party taking away the ability to play music that you own without providing a replacement effectively constitutes theft of property, and should be punished accordingly with jail time for the top people at the record companies and Microsoft plus civil liability. No contract can allow a company to violate the law, period. Such a clause would be considered an illegal agreement, and thus would not be upheld in court.

That said, if we naively believe the music industry's misinformation and consider it a license, Chapter 2, section 203 lays out what they have to do so revoke that license. Let's just say it would be cheaper for them to mail a copy of every song out on CD. Among other things, it requires them to provide an advance notice in writing to every single person who received the license, which must be signed by the copyright holders, must provide the effective date of termination, and can never occur under any circumstances prior to the 35th anniversary of the grant. Even such a revocation would not remove your rights to private listening of the material, however, as the copyright act explicitly disclaims any interest in covering such use of the material in Chapter 1, section 110:

Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the following are not infringements of copyright:
...
(4) performance of a nondramatic literary or musical work otherwise than in a transmission to the public, without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage and without payment of any fee or other compensation for the performance to any of its performers, promoters, or organizers, if--
(A) there is no direct or indirect admission charge; or
(B) ...

That said, if this is a nonexclusive copyright license, however, and even if you believe that somehow the EULA manages to trump Title 17, unless there is a termination clause, they cannot revoke that license without cause, and even if there is, a court will almost certainly hold such a clause to be unconscionable, particularly in light of the implied promise that the music "plays for sure", the fundamental inequality of the two parties, and the fact that for most of the people involved, the only way to obtain the music on a per-track basis in a way that was compatible with their devices was through one of a handful of services all operating under license from Microsoft, all with the same contract terms.

In short, the case would be about as open and shut as a copyright-related lawsuit can get, and Microsoft and the recording industry would be on the losing end of it.... While normally I would say that the only people who win such a case are the lawyers, even a win for the lawyers in this case would be a great win for the public as a whole, as it would establish precedent for the legal responsibility incumbent upon music publishers who choose to use restrictive DRM. and any such precedent in that area would be a positive change over the current state of the industry.

Re:Unlikely.

[clang_jangle]

I was a plaintiff in a "successful" class action suit against a major telco. This is a company which continued to bill me for service every month for six months after I cancelled my subscription, after having overcharged me regularly and "slammed" me into services I did not order or authorize while I was legitimately subscribed. We were awarded an impressive amount of money after a two-year battle. Finally after the lawyers got paid and we all split the money I received the princely sum of $7.00 (yes, seven dollars U.S.). They are still pursuing collection against me for the months they were billing me after I had unsubscribed via a collection agency. I absolutely will not pay those bastards one more red cent as long as I live, so in four years that one goes away. That suit was "won" three years ago.

2014 isn't that far away

[Cassini2]

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.

Re:2014 isn't that far away

[hairyfeet]

I don't know about him, but a few years back I had to dig out my Pentium 100Mhz and sell it to my boss so we would have a machine with ISA slots for me to dig out my old DOS commands and install DOS 3 on because a customer had an old computer lathe (you know those ones that you input a pattern and it carves columns and posts) that would only run its ISA card on DOS 3 or below. The computer it was replacing was an old Intel 20Mhz that had to have been there forever from the amount of dust and wood shavings that had managed to work their way inside. Of course the company they bought it from have been out of business for years and running it in Win9X threw off the timing of the lathe.

So yeah, it really wouldn't surprise me if he has an embedded from deity knows when doing some specialized job that would be too expensive to replace. The mill owner said the pc and lathe cost them nearly $80K back in the day and a replacement would be so expensive they would never make their money back with the limited amount of custom columns they sell. So last I heard my original gamer rig which I used to run DOOM and Quake on is happily making scroll work on columns and posts while running DOS 3 as a custom lathe controller. Just goes to show you never know when that old junk in the closet might be useful again. ;-)

Re:suppositories

[basscomm]

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.

That information used to be available here, but has mysteriously vanished from the revamped page. It's still on this international page, however.

Re:Since when does XP require authentication?

[rfunches]

If you have a "corporate" build of WinXP (e.g. 2600) it doesn't require activation. Retail builds do, and even "OEM"-style software I've downloaded through MSDNAA requires activation. Otherwise in 30 days, poof, your access to the OS is limited.

WGA will just lock you out of updates should your software, OS or otherwise, be "not genuine." I don't think anyone's had WGA disable the software yet.

Re:Why is this news? Because it's Microsoft.

[LearnToSpell]

you can download a stripper

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Why is this news? Because it's Microsoft.

[enoz]

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.

Re:even for M$.

[colmore]

Good info but I have to ask, are other people's slashdot comments really worth that much of your time?

Re:even for M$.

[hairyfeet]

I don't know about RTM, but they certainly aren't in refresh 2. Hell, refresh 2 doesn't even have that stupid WGA crap, which is nice for me since I got to use it on my two offline XP rigs. I would highly recommend SP3 Refresh 2 even if you never have the intention of letting them online as I average a 15% speed boost from SP3 and saw the biggest boost on the oldest machine of roughly 18%. But of course it depends on your hardware so YMMV.

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.

Re:Is there any chance?

[Technician]

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.

Re:Is there any chance?

[caluml]

I have 2 votes then. It's call the British Pound. :)

Re:even for M$.

[MojoStan]

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. Insightful? For chrissakes, RTFA:

• "Of course, MSN Music customers do have one other option: burning all of their music to audio CD and then re-ripping them back to the computer as MP3s, sans DRM. But that's a lossy, lousy solution."

Re:Is there any chance?

[Xest]

Yes, just don't spend it here in Britain itself else it'll only buy you half a vote ;)

Re:Is there any chance?

[PinkyDead]

Boo hoo! I only have a Euro, which means I have 0.79 the voting power of you.

0.80....
0.81...
0.82.....

Re:Since when does XP require authentication?

[Anonymous Coward]

WGA will just lock you out of updates should your software, OS or otherwise, be "not genuine." I don't think anyone's had WGA disable the software yet.

WRONG! When the WGA servers for Vista borked, thousands of Vista installs claimed they weren't legit, and refused to show desktops to their users. People (and businesses) couldn't use the OS for which they paid an ass load of money. It took them DAYS to bring them back up, and MS said "oops, that wasn't supposed to happen".

SP1 for Vista removed the big lock-down, something that probably burned them up inside, being that THIS would SOLVE PIRACY FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!! (by ruining the experience and annoying the hell out of paying customers)