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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."

10 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 Shikaku · · Score: 5, Funny

      Tagged: suddenoutbreakoflawsuits

    2. 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
    3. 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?
  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 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: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?

  4. 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?

  5. 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
  6. 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!