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Walmart Caves On DRM Removal

Posted by kdawson on from the just-kidding dept.

cmunic8r99 writes in with an email he received from walmart.com yesterday evening about the pending shutdown of their DRM services (which we discussed a while back). Walmart has reconsidered and won't be shutting off its DRM servers after all. They are still moving to an all-MP3 store, but won't break all the DRMed music its customers have already downloaded; this because of "feedback from the customers."

56 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Wal-Mart by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Only did this so that people wouldn't sue them.

    1. Re:Wal-Mart by Gewalt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      this because of "feedback from the customers."

      Only did this so that people wouldn't sue them.

      You say tomato, I say fruit. Whatever.

      --
      Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
    2. Re:Wal-Mart by Shikaku · · Score: 5, Funny

      Tagged: suddenoutbreakoflawsuits

    3. Re:Wal-Mart by jlarocco · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Only did this so that people wouldn't sue them.

      What's your point? Walmart was looking out for their bottom line? You don't really think Walmart is in business because they get warm fuzzy feelings selling cheap shit to cheap people, do you? A lawsuit would have been an expensive waste of time for everybody involved, and they almost certainly would have lost. It was clearly in Walmart's best interest to avoid it.

      That's the way it's supposed to work.

      --
      Maybe not
    4. Re:Wal-Mart by Schadrach · · Score: 2, Funny

      IOW, the way it is supposed to work is that they should, whenever the expected lawsuits are less expensive, shut down the DRM servers, and effectively render useless that which their customers have purchased?

      You know, I need to start manufacturing things with built-in self destruct switches and simply blow up my customers purchases when I need more sales. =)

    5. Re:Wal-Mart by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Funny
      "You know, I need to start manufacturing things with built-in self destruct switches and simply blow up my customers purchases when I need more sales. =)"

      If these are in the form of a 'vest'....I think you'll find a ready made market over there in the middle east. Heck....make it voice activated:

      LaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLa....BOOM!

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    6. Re:Wal-Mart by davmoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Horse shit. Walmart spends more on toilet paper for their in-store restrooms in a month than a lawsuit over this would have cost them. Plus I'd be willing to bet that there is fine print in the user agreement for all those DRMed tracks somewhere that says words to the effect of "we can turn it off any time with a few days notice and its your problem not ours".

      It probably really was customer feedback and the fact that this was making Walmart look bad. Bad press is far more damaging than some piddly ol' nickel and dime lawsuit.

      --
      I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
    7. Re:Wal-Mart by gsgriffin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Agreed. Those of us in America should live outside America for a while. I got back from living in South Africa for over a year. I wish they had more lawsuits! You heard me right. It because of lawsuit and the threat oif lawsuits that companies take us into consideration and have to build things safer. Ever bought a toaster outside of the US. You'll burn you hand the first time you use it. Not in America. The only toasters you find will be more carefully designed and labeled. Why because of the threat of lawsuits. We still get cheap products. The unsafe products are shipped from China to other parts of the world. Hate the laywer. Like the eventual product.

      --
      jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
    8. Re:Wal-Mart by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Informative

      Walmart spends more on toilet paper for their in-store restrooms in a month than a lawsuit over this would have cost them.

      No, because they would have likely lost the lawsuit and the judge would have done one of two things:
      1. Forced them to pay compensation to the people who bought the music.
      2. Forced them to escrow money to keep the servers running.

      Add in lawyer fees (plaintiff and defendant), and it is clear that they should just take #2 without the fight.

      Plus I'd be willing to bet that there is fine print in the user agreement for all those DRMed tracks somewhere that says words to the effect of "we can turn it off any time with a few days notice and its your problem not ours".

      I guarantee that is in there somewhere. But that doesn't make it enforceable.

      It probably really was customer feedback and the fact that this was making Walmart look bad.

      It was probably that, too. Not everything is black and white :) The added publicity from a lawsuit would have been detrimental as well.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    9. Re:Wal-Mart by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Funny

      Whatever else you might want to say about Walmart, you at
      least have to give them credit for being good at pandering
      to their customers. That says as much about the Walmart
      shopper as it does Walmart, but that's another rant...

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    10. Re:Wal-Mart by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 4, Funny

      Modded: $tupid overu$e of dollar $ign$

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    11. Re:Wal-Mart by nabsltd · · Score: 2, Funny

      Walmart spends more on toilet paper for their in-store restrooms in a month than a lawsuit over this would have cost them.

      If you sue for the same sorts of "losses" that the RIAA sues for, then that $100,000+ per track would add up pretty fast.

      Even with miserable total sales of 10,000 tracks, that'd be a billion dollar lawsuit.

    12. Re:Wal-Mart by Alsee · · Score: 2, Funny

      I need to start manufacturing things with built-in self destruct switches and simply blow up my customers purchases when I need more sales. =)

      Microsoft got the patent on that ages ago.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    13. Re:Wal-Mart by somersault · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ever bought a toaster outside of the US. You'll burn you hand the first time you use it. Not in America. The only toasters you find will be more carefully designed and labeled

      Would this label say "do not insert hand into toaster while in operation?". Yeesh..

      There is a big difference between "outside of the US" and "South Africa". Please stop making such crazy generalisations. I don't think I've ever burned my hand on a toaster..

      --
      which is totally what she said
    14. Re:Wal-Mart by the_arrow · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't think I've ever burned my hand on a toaster..

      Might it have something to do with you knowing that it is hot, i.e. using your common sense? I will probably be modded flamebait, bit it seems to me that most people in the US of A simply have lost their common sense. While having non-hot toasters, do you also wait with getting the bread from it? Because, you know, it might be hot and you can feel a burning sensation? Well if you do, the obvious choice is of course to sue the maker of the toaster!

      --
      / The Arrow
      "How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
    15. Re:Wal-Mart by PIBM · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Or this evil plan...

      Think about closing the servers .. Save X per months. Cost of the future lawsuits, evaluate to something maybe greater than X, maybe smaller. Add in the bad publicity about closing them and the lawsuit, total losses are greater than the inital X.

      Then wonder, what if we'd announce we'd close them, and shortly after get good free publicity about us catering to our users ? So we keep paying for X, but we get 5 * X in return just in the first month!

      Anyway =)

    16. Re:Wal-Mart by gsgriffin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're funny, Flamebait! Looks bad from the outside looking in. You see and hear only the stories that are most "newsworthy" and what the media finds interesting. The thousand of correct lawsuits keep doctors from practicing sloppy medicine on my infant. They keep stores from selling crap that will choke a child. They bring justic to lazy landlords that treat poor tenants like animals. They make sure we don't buy things that were known to contain melamine and are sold anyway.

      --
      jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
  2. Presumably... by Gordonjcp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... they have a list of who bought which track. Wouldn't it be simpler to just send them non-DRMed copies of things they've already bought? At the very least, they could offer a discount for people re-buying tracks in a non-DRMed format.

    1. Re:Presumably... by Gewalt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They do not have the rights to take such actions as you propose. Only Apple/iTunes was smart enough to get that written into their contract.

      --
      Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
    2. Re:Presumably... by yincrash · · Score: 5, Informative

      The problem with that is that Walmart probably has a contract with record labels that they made when they started the DRM service, and reoffering nonDRMed files would either require breaking the contract which risks a lawsuit, making a new contract with the record labels to allow them to reoffer DRM tracks for free (which would cost walmart tons because there is no way record labels would be interested in letting that happen w/o being paid a second time).

      the cheapest short term solution to keep their customers happy is just to leave the DRM servers up.

    3. Re:Presumably... by Lord+Kano · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even if walmart has to pay the record companies out of its own pocket, what's the break even point? You pay for a bunch of MP3s once or you pay to maintain servers forever. At some people, the MP3 option becomes cheaper.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    4. Re:Presumably... by yincrash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think walmart is gambling that before that point comes, people will have forgotten or given up on their DRMed music and they will be able to shut off their servers.

    5. Re:Presumably... by qubex · · Score: 2, Informative

      I strongly suspect that within the temporal horizon Walmart considers, the cost of maintaining minimal authentication severs is absolutely minimal.

      They have the hardware already (obviously), idem for the maintenance contracts, their only variable cost is bandwidth. At the very least, this will stop rising as nobody will be authorising new music.

      I expect their authentication server's performance will gradually degrade as they cease spending money on maintenance and upgrades, but it will remain basically usable - avoiding them the lawsuits.

      This, basically, accounts for the total of their NPV.

      --
      "Place me in the company of those who seek Truth, but deliver me from those who believe to have found it."
    6. Re:Presumably... by electrictroy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Do it anyway. It would be fun watching tiny RIAA try to sue billion-dollar Walmart.

      In my view all Walmart would be doing is simply trading "broken items" with new working items. Just like trading a broken radio for a working radio. That's called good customer service, and Walmart would gain far more money from their happy customers, then they'd lose against a mosquito like RIAA.

      --
      The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
    7. Re:Presumably... by Gewalt · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nope, check the EULA. They literally spell out your rights. If for any reason, their DRM system needs to be taken permanently offline, they will provide you with the tools to remove the DRM from your purchased media.

      That said, I would never knowingly purchase any DRM'd content. It just defies all intelligence.

      --
      Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
  3. Feels like a Scooby-Doo ending. by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Wal-Mart almost succeeding in robbing blind everyone who had purchased from their online store by making their MP3s unplayable, forcing them to pay for their music AGAIN. Now it took the effort of thousands of customers putting pressure on the stores, and they very nearly pulled it off. How long before other online music services decide to try something like this again, or simply go out of business and leave their customers in the cold?

    "I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for you meddling kids!"

    1. Re:Feels like a Scooby-Doo ending. by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 4, Insightful
      All this means is that they will wait another year or maybe two before shutting down the DRM servers. They will in the end, there is no doubt.

      Do you seriously think the DRM servers will be running in 20 years? No way.

      --
      This space available.
    2. Re:Feels like a Scooby-Doo ending. by Guido+von+Guido · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All this means is that they will wait another year or maybe two before shutting down the DRM servers. They will in the end, there is no doubt.

      Do you seriously think the DRM servers will be running in 20 years? No way.

      While I'm in agreement, Walmart could certainly use that year or two in order to attempt to convince the labels to allow Walmart to remove the DRM from users' purchases. I think it'd be in their interest: they'd be able to shut down the DRM servers, they wouldn't take a big PR hit, and this episode would be much less likely to affect future music sales. Walmart is certainly willing to use their leverage to squeeze suppliers, and they probably have enough leverage with the labels to at least give it a try.

      Would they get anywhere? Hell if I know.

    3. Re:Feels like a Scooby-Doo ending. by Sancho · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The sooner they turn the servers off, the better. The public needs to learn that DRM means that they don't own copies of the media, despite what marketing would have them think.

    4. Re:Feels like a Scooby-Doo ending. by cptdondo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think there is a lesson in this to the companies that sell DRM crap that depends on servers. It's a one-time purchase with a recurring cost to the seller. Ultimately, DRM is a losing proposition to the retailer - if you run the DRM servers long enough, you *will* lose money.

      It's basically a ponzi scheme - to cover the cost of running the DRM servers, you have to keep finding new sales to prop up the running expenses on the old sales. Eventually you run out of new sales and you lose money.

      The incremental cost / track of running those servers is miniscule, but as old sales add up you still have to pay for bandwidth, iron, and power to service them.

      Seems that DRM based on servers is bad for retailers as well.

  4. Re:HUH?? by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, it does. Play a DRMed file. Listen to the quality.

    Turn off the DRM servers, transfer the file to another machine and listen to it again.

    Listen to the windows error message sound.

    Which sounds better?

  5. DMCA exemption by sunderland56 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wouldn't "Disabling a DRM format that is obsolete" be a good candidate to add to the DMCA exemptions?

    1. Re:DMCA exemption by jank1887 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      how about "providing a tool to enable disabling of DRM when it has become obsolete"? IIRC, under the DMCA it's still technically never legal to distribute any tools that will accomplish this task.

    2. Re:DMCA exemption by Sockatume · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Where necessary for a customer to continue exercising his or her rights on the media." If they take away the rights that you paid for - which is the whole damn product when you buy something with DRM - then it is entirely reasonable that you can circumvent the DMCA to regain those rights.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    3. Re:DMCA exemption by vrmlguy · · Score: 4, Informative

      I just looked at the legalese from 2006, and came up with the following:

      Sound recordings, and audiovisual works associated with those sound recordings, distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require access to a central server as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or reproduction of published digital works by the original accessing entity. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine, system or service necessary to authorize the perceptible of a work stored in that format if a central server is no longer provided to authorize such perceptible./quote

      --
      Nothing for 6-digit uids?
  6. Re:"Feedback" as in ... by ozphx · · Score: 2, Informative

    As Penn Jilette says: "I would make executives more concerned with making money. I'm serious."

    Walmarts executives are very interested in making money. They want to sell music, and they aren't especially interested in running DRM servers. They will use whatever method they can to get as much popular music into the hands of paying customers as possible.

    $MusicLabel executives on the other hand are also interested in making money. They (until quite recently) seemed to think the best method of doing this was demanding keeping a vicelike DRM grip on the balls of the end-consumer. Until recently they were giving companies that wanted to deliver non-DRM content what is known in business as "the finger".

    So possibly a better thing to say would be "$MusicLabel execs need to take a look at the pulse *here* and their finger, which is *here* firmly jammed up their own arsehole." - ozphx [slashdot.org].

    --
    3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
  7. Re:HUH?? by ozphx · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hey I'll have you know the windows error message sound was mastered by King Crimsons Robert Fripp! ;)

    --
    3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
  8. The real price of DRM by initialE · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For consumers, living in constant doubt of their content. For providers, servers that they will have to run, like, forever. And the admins who maintain them.

    --
    Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
  9. Re:"feedback from the customers." by TheSpoom · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're missing the point.

    They might not want DRM, but they do want their previous purchased music to not suddenly become worthless.

    --
    It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
    - E. Debs
  10. Re:Rather than a tool by HeavyD14 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Where? I see they are going to stop using DRM, but not that they will remove it from your files you already have.

  11. Re:Feedback ... by wish+bot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They'll just quietly try it again in a year. Mark my words.

    --
    lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
  12. retarded walmart hate by timmarhy · · Score: 2, Insightful
    look at all the comments condemning walmart, even though this is the right thing to do. fuck, they listen to their customers and you still think they are evil?

    someone are just plains stupid i guess.

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    1. Re:retarded walmart hate by LanMan04 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They should have done the right thing the first time, without getting yelled at. They got caught doing something stupid, and had to take their hand back out of the cookie jar. It would have been better if we didn't have to beat them into doing the right thing.

      --
      With the first link, the chain is forged.
  13. virtualization hole by mevets · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apologies for marginally off topic, but couldn't I write an 'audio driver' for Xen, Bochs, .... which took the samples intended for the sound card and store them to a file; un-drming anything? Same for DVDs? Where does this stand with DMCA? I'm not reverse engineering anything....

    1. Re:virtualization hole by mR.bRiGhTsId3 · · Score: 2, Informative

      You are correct, and I'm fairly certain that is why all the protected output path technologies are coming into play, in order to preventexactly that. To actually take the dump, you would nee to decrypt something, at which point you have entered the realm of circumvention technologies.

  14. Now, if we can get off Windows by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hopefully they can pull their web developers' collective head out of their collective ass and make a web store that works on something other than internet explorer and windows.

    Seriously, is this 1995 or something?

    --
    Do you have ESP?
    1. Re:Now, if we can get off Windows by Phroggy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hopefully they can pull their web developers' collective head out of their collective ass and make a web store that works on something other than internet explorer and windows.

      This is precisely why Apple created both the iPod and the iTunes Store in the first place, and why Apple isn't concerned with turning a profit on the iTunes Store (as long as they break even). They wanted a portable MP3 player that would work with Macs, and they wanted digital music sales to be available for Macs and the iPod.

      Unfortunately Apple doesn't think it's in their best interest to support Linux, although this is mostly due to technical hurdles (porting QuickTime to Windows was a huge pain in the ass and they wound up porting significant chunks of Mac OS in order to do it; porting QuickTime to Linux would be a whole new pain in the ass, and iTunes can't run without QuickTime).

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  15. Whoops! by myxiplx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now *this* is good news.

    Why? Because you can bet that Wallmart execs are not at all happy about having to pay for and run a bunch of servers that are no longer making them any money. You can bet that just opened their eyes to the downsides of DRM, and that some people at the top are now asking the music labels some tricky questions, namely "how long are we supposed to keep paying to run these damn things now?".

    Wallmart will not want to be left in this position again, and I can see this causing them to put some real pressure on the music labels to drop DRM.

    It also means that Wallmart, Apple and Amazon are all pushing for non DRM music. All together that's some pretty hefty leverage!

    1. Re:Whoops! by Dog-Cow · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't have a single DRM'd song from iTunes, though I've bought about half a dozen albums. (iTunes just doesn't carry much of what I like.)

    2. Re:Whoops! by HAKdragon · · Score: 2, Informative

      I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but...

      Taken from the iTunes Store Wikipedia entry:

       

      On February 6, 2007, Steve Jobs called on the Big Four record labels to allow their music to be sold DRM-free.[46] On April 2, 2007, Apple and the record label EMI announced that the iTunes Store would begin offering, as an additional purchasing option, tracks from EMI's catalog encoded as 256 kbit/s AAC without FairPlay or any other DRM.

      On May 29, 2007, Apple released version 7.2 of its iTunes software, allowing users to purchase DRM-free music and music videos from participating labels. These new files, available through the iTunes Store, have been called iTunes Plus music by Apple.

      In October 2007, iTunes Plus ceased to be a purchasing option. It instead became mandatory for all iTunes Plus licensed content. In addition, the price of iTunes Plus reverted to the DRM price.

      Almost immediately after the launch of iTunes Plus, reports surfaced that the DRM-free tracks sold by the iTunes Store contained identifying information about the customer, embedding the purchasing account's full name and e-mail address as metadata in the file. While this information has always been in iTunes downloads both with and without Fairplay DRM, it is thought that it remains in the tracks as a measure to trace the source of tracks shared illegally online, which the absence of DRM now facilitates. Privacy groups expressed concerns that this data could be misused if possessions carrying the files were stolen, and potentially wrongly incriminate a user for copyright infringement.
       

      --
      "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
  16. Re:"Feedback" as in ... by Hijacked+Public · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The discussion gets circular at some point, they are working for control because they think that will get them more money.

    A buzzphrase that may or may not still be vocalized by executives is 'data driven decisions'. In practice a good many decision are still made according to gut feelings, or very thin data, or totally invented data. In part this is because getting good data is hard to do and even harder to find clear meaning in.

    Here at Slashdot you have a demographic that should be more math oriented than most and yet you have people, this thread is a good example, writing about the financial and legal consequences of the Wal-Mart Corporation running or not running DRM servers. This is without a day's legal education in their lives and with no more financial experience than balancing their own checkbook. And with no clear actual numbers on which to base any of their conclusions.

    So just like the above Slashdotters, music execs went with their gut feelings. They expected digital formats to work like every other format in the entire history of their business model. I don't blame them. All of the non-DRM music stores coming online seems to suggest their minds are changing. If these stores make for the music industry I'm sure DRM for music will be mostly abandoned.

    --
    "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
  17. Walmart isn't judgement-proof... by argent · · Score: 3, Informative

    There's been plenty of people who've sued Walmart, and won, even over smaller issues than beelyuns of imaginary dollars.

    And Walmart's reactions AFTER the lawsuit are often completely disproportionate. Apparently, Walmart employees can get disciplined for working during their breaks now, because someone who had to work through their lunch break a bunch of times sued over it, and won. If you ask a Walmart employee for help and they say they're on break, and they can't, they really mean it.

    1. Re:Walmart isn't judgement-proof... by electrictroy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >>>Walmart employees can get disciplined for working during their breaks now...

      Most stores have had that restriction for years. I got disciplined for working my break at JCPenney, and that was back in 1992! Don't blame the store; it's the government's fault that things are that way. The stores are merely trying to protect themselves form government punishment.

      Back to topic:

      - If Walmart sold DRM songs, and Walmart turns-off the DRM servers, those songs would be non-functional.
      - Walmart has an *obligation* to replace those broken songs with working songs (or get sued by angry consumers).
      - I'm sure any competent judge would recognize that basic fact, and throw-away any RIAA lawsuit as anti-consumer.

      In fact if the judge was particularly intelligent, he'd probably remind RIAA that they have already been slapped once for restricting retailers' freedom of trade, forming an illegal cartel, and anti-consumer "CD price fixing", and that he and other judges are still watching RIAA very carefully to see if they become a repeat offender.

      --
      The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
  18. Re:Feedback from Walmart Customers by Sockatume · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If the DRM servers stay on, the customers continue to use the files they paid for. If the DRM servers switch off, those files will become useless at some point in the future and must be repurchased, making money for aforementioned studios. If everyone's switching to DRM-free music, you can bet the studios want them to switch their DRM servers off too.

    --
    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  19. Re:Feedback ... by somersault · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The good thing is that this will be a great example to smaller organisations (basically.. everyone) that DRM is a waste of money for the proprietors as well as a PITA for clients.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  20. Re:Heh.. by qoncept · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You're a genius. But do you think people in the military started paying $8 for a burrito after the change, or everyone else started paying $6? It didn't help anyone but the restaurant.

    Such is the human condition, I guess. People are more interested in dicking people over that are more fortunate than them than improving their own situation. Go to a bar with a shuffleboard table, and you'll see everyone is more interested in knocking the other guy's puck thing off than scoring points for himself.

    --
    Whale