Kindle, Zune DRM Restrictions Coming Into Focus

It's not news that the media you buy for both Kindle and Zune are protected by DRM. Readers are sending in stories of some of the ramifications of that fact. First, Absentminded-Artist notes an account at Gear Diary recounting what an Amazon rep told one user about download limits on Kindle books. "One facet of the Kindle's DRM has reared an ugly head: download limitations. Upgraded your iPhone recently? Bought a new Kindle? You may not be able to reload your entire library. There's an unadvertised flag: 'You mean when you go to buy the book it doesn't say "this book can be downloaded this number of times" even though that limitation is there?' To which [the rep] replied, 'No, I'm very sorry it doesn't.'" Next, reader Rjak writes "DRM is a bad idea, poorly implemented. One of the many many valid reasons to drop Zune and its marketplace is the DRM validation error you see below. The vast majority of the music I had purchased last year is completely gone. There's no refund, the music doesn't exist on the service anymore, the files are just garbage now. Here's the error (screen capture): 'This item is no longer available at Zune Marketplace. Because of this, you can no longer play it or sync it with your Zune. There might be another iteration of it available in Zune Marketplace.'" Update: 06/23 00:28 GMT by KD : The Gear Diary blog has been updated with what may be more definitive information from Amazon on how the Kindle DRM behaves.

Comments

Re:When Will the Average Consumer Learn?

[beelsebob]

iTunes
You mean that totally 100% DRM free music service?

Re:When Will the Average Consumer Learn?

[Kell Bengal]

This is precisely why I -don't- buy CDs anymore. I used to faithfully buy CDs from a band published through EMI. I play all my music from my PC and it's Very Fine (TM) sound system I spent a bunch of cash putting together. I do not own a stereo. One day, I bought the latest CD by this band and was surprised and confused as to why it stubbornly refused to play... turned out that EMI had put some copyprotection shit on the CD that resolutely refused to work with my CD playing software.

Now, I'm technically literate so it was a simple thing to rip the CD bit-wise and produce lossless files from it and burn them to a CD, but I was so incensed by the whole experience that I swore an oath never to buy from EMI again, nor any company that put protection on its CDs. I PAID for that CD, dammit - I did the right thing because I wanted to support what they were doing. And yet I, the person who actually paid cash for it, was the one who couldn't enjoy it while Teh Evul Piratez could.

Not only was their copy protection a waste of time, it was also lost them a faithful customer.