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Walmart's Music Download Terms Say You Don't Own A Thing

Say That Again

from the we-own-everything dept

Mon, Dec 22nd 2003 12:48pm — Mike Masnick
While Walmart made a splash last week introducing their cheaper music downloading service, the folks over at the EFF have noticed that the end user license agreement is particularly painful in basically telling you that you haven't bought a damn thing. You can't do anything with the music you've supposedly "bought". You certainly aren't allowed to resell it - taking away the "right of first sale". All Walmart seems to be doing is giving you a temporary license to listen to music as long as Walmart remains happy with you. As Fred von Lohmann at the EFF says: "Current DRM has nothing to do with preventing piracy, everything to do with impairing consumer rights, competition and innovation."
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  • identicon
    Robert Giese, 16 Sep 2004 @ 12:10am

    No Subject Given

    I am an artist currently residing in Athens, GA and I am working on a project called Music Wal-Mart Won’t Sell. The piece will be an installation consisting of a room full of CDs. Obviously, the CDs will all contain music that Wal-Mart will not sell in there retail or online venues. I will chart and promenently display the information from all CDs and give credit to the artists. The list of artists will be the primary text (not withstanding an explanation of the piece). A list of contributors will be the secondary text. What I am asking you to do is solicit all of the Musicians you know for a demo CD—the bands need to label each CD with the name of the band, the date they donated the CD, the last venue they played, and a short sentence describing the band. The piece will not make any reference to any musician that is marketed by Wal-Mart. However, musicians that have compromised their artistic integrity in order to be marketed by Wal-Mart will be mentioned. Media attention will be aggressively sought and is almost guaranteed considering the town I am displaying in (Athens, GA) and the fact that the worlds largest company is the subject (and target of criticism). Please send any info and/or questions to:

    Robert Giese
    430 Milledge Terrace
    Athens, GA 30606

    giese@uga.edu

    Thanks,
    Robert

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mark Vassmer, 20 Nov 2005 @ 2:08pm

    Songs last a year

    I just found out that two months ago, Walmart.com changed their policies and will no longer fix a broken license. In other words, when I first bought my music from them a year ago, they told me that if something happened to the license, they would fix it. They did this once this year when I changed computers. When I discovered today some additional music that didn't transfer right, they advised me of the new policy.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]


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