Microsoft's Final 'Up Yours' To Those Who Bought Into Its DRM Story
nes...@wigner.berkeley.edu
Remember a few years back when Microsoft launched a new type of DRM
under the name "PlaysForSure"? The idea was to create a standard DRM
that a bunch of different online music download stores could use, and
which makers of digital music devices could build for. Except... like
any DRM, it had its problems. And, like any DRM, its real purpose was
to take away features, not add them, making all of the content
hindered by it less valuable. Yet, because Microsoft was behind it,
many people assumed that at least Microsoft would keep supporting it.
Well, you've now learned your lesson. Playsforsure was so bad that
Microsoft didn't even use it for its own Zune digital media device.
Along with that, Microsoft shut down its failed online music store,
and now for the kicker, it's telling anyone who was suckered into
buying that DRM'd content that it's about to nuke the DRM approval
servers that let you transfer the music to new machines. That means
you need to authorize any songs you have on whatever machine you want
-- and that's the only place they'll be able to reside forever. And,
of course, any upgrade to your operating system (say from XP to Vista)
and you lose access to your music as well. By now, hopefully, everyone
is aware of why DRM is problematic, but it's nice of Microsoft to give
one final demonstration by basically taking away more rights for the
music it sold people with the promise that Microsoft would keep the
music available.
</Quote>
Mark Kent
The music industry could get around this by getting some good, new,
music available which people wanted to pay for. The DRM model is pretty
much an acceptance that their back-catalogue is more important than any
future possibilities - it's throwing the towel in on the next generation
of musicians, writers, producers and co.
I'm not sure quite how Microsoft justify shutting down their
"playsforsure" servers, but presumably they want to kill this in order
to "migrate" their "customers" onto a new Microsoft platform where they
get to pay again.
--
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