Depending on an external provider to validate that the protected media files — music, video, whatever — are actually valid and “belong” to you is, in short, a mook’s game, because sooner or later, that external provider won’t do it any more.
And if that external provider is an always-fan-unfriendly major league sport — like, for example, Major League Baseball — you can be sure that it will be “sooner.”
Just got off the phone with a MLB customer service supervisor.
“MLB no longer supports the DDS system” that it once used and so any CDs with downloaded games on them “are no good. They will not work with the current system.”
Great. Just effing great. … As I told the supervisor, this is right in line with how wrong-headed and stupid and ass backwards MLB does everything.
I was told there is absolutely nothing MLB can do about these lost games. Plus, they said my purchases were all “one-time sales” and thus “there are no refunds”.
No refunds? As Lee Elia would say: “My fucking ass!”
My info has been submitted to some other MLB department which will review things and see what they can do about either getting me the games I paid for or refunding my $280.45.
Dude has been downloading full games to his computer from MLB, at $3.95 a pop — some 71 games — burned onto CDs. Because they required validation at each play to MLB.com, and MLB has decided to go with a different DRM provider and scheme … dude is now out $280-odd bucks.
Because, after all, even though he paid for them, they aren’t his. They’re theirs. All the time he thought he was buying something, he was just renting them … and only renting them for as long as they could be bothered to let him continue to see them.
And, as Les note so eloquently:
Of course all of those video files are easily available over BitTorrent and other P2P file sharing networks and the pirates never even noticed that the price changed nor the DRM. Once again it’s the honest consumer who’s trying to play by the rules that gets fucked over by DRM and then told “Sorry, no refunds.” And then the Powers That Be wonder why people continue to download pirated media files even though the price on the legit copies is so reasonable.
If it can be taken back at any time — it’s not yours. Unless you’re willing to acknowledge that you’re only renting it at the whim of the true “owner” — don’t pay money for it.