Music Blogs

Just in case anyone still needed more evidence that digital rights management on music was the stupidest idea in the world ever, WalMart in the US last weekend told their digital music customers that they are about to turn off their DRM servers which will mean any DRMed music bought from the supermarket giant's download store will stop working. Customers will have to burn any music they bought that way onto CD (which was allowed under the DRM rules), and then rip it back as MP3 (which wasn't, but can still be done, and who cares?).

WalMart are switching off the DRM service after taking their digital music offer down the MP3 route earlier this year. As you'll remember, a similar fate befell those who bought music from the MSN download service in the US after Microsoft launched the Zune player and decided to stop supporting their own Windows Media Audio DRM.

This is why the record companies should never have let tech firms and etailers talk them into DRM in the first place. We'll be sending "I told you so" badges to every previously-DRM-supporting label execs still in work.

-- Taken from today's CMU Daily, www.cmudaily.co.uk