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yet another Microsoft blogger

# Tuesday, August 21, 2007

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Another reason not to bother with DRM

First there was Napster, MSN Music, now Urge.

The digital music selling business is a disaster. I wonder how one "authenticates" these songs in like 10 years... will those DRM servers be around to give you the right to listen to your music?

At this rate... Rhapsody might be next.

I suspect Apple will be around a very long time and will be able to answer the phone when iTunes comes a calling... ditto for Zune, but really, who needs this.

update: forgot MSN Music.

Digital Audio
Posted Wednesday, August 22, 2007    Permalink    Comments [2]  View blog reactions

 

Tuesday, August 21, 2007 9:30:33 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
Let's be clear about this: This isn't Urge and Napster, this is Microsoft. Microsoft abandoned PlaysForSure, and the companies that were building on top of it (and the consumers who bought into the ecosystem) got fucked.

I think this -- abandoning a moderately healthy and growing "open" DRM infrastructure in favor of a wholly proprietary one in Zune -- is the stupidest thing Microsoft's done in a long while, and I have to believe that if Microsoft had been able to forecast how underwhelming Zune would do, they'd just have stuck with their Plan A. But alas, too late, and now DRM is a morass of incompatible islands with no chance of a licensable standard winning out.

Which is to say, yes, don't bother with DRM.
Mike Kozlowski
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 9:57:34 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
Ten years? You can see in the DRM Removal Forum that people already have problems with DRM protected music they bought a couple of years ago. Why risking your music collection? Remove DRM protection from your audio/video files right now. Lots of DRM removal programs can do that. Some of them are even free! Act now and allows yourself to play legally purchased copy-protected files not only on devices your media content provider supports, but also on any device you have!
DRM_Remover
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