Imagine if you bought a CD and, a few months or years later, some guy came to the door and said, “Sorry, if you ever move from this house, or buy new stereo equipment, you won’t be able to play that CD any more. Too bad.”
Or, perhaps, you simply downloaded music from MSN’s Music Store.
Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft’s now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it’s done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer.
MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “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 seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”
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.
This is why DRMed (Digital Rights Management) music sucks. Because you don’t really own it if it only works as long as the music servers are maintained online.
It’s as if they actually want us to buy (and rip) CDs instead …
(via Les)
They’d anticipate it if they knew Microsoft a little better. But the whole DRM concept puts you at the mercy of some company. First thing I do with any music is rip it to mp3.
~nods in agreement with DOF~
Micro$oft is not alone in this, or to be singled out for special blame. It’s not the first DRM owner to strand their paid customers, and won’t be the last, as long as DRM is the way these companies go (and the way people are willing to buy).