Latest Entertainment Digital Strategy: Incidental Obsolescence
from the hmmmmmmm dept
One of the Guardian blogs has a post involving the demise of the MyCokeMusic download store, at one time the biggest download store in Europe. It raises an interesting question, though not one the post actually hits on -- what happens for consumers when a seller of DRMed media files shuts down? With things like cassettes, LPs or CDs, their obsolence can really be determined only by a lack of available playback equipment. But for locked-down digital files, particularly those using a mechanism that has to go out and validate a license from a content provider or another authority, the closure of such an entity could render files unplayable. One of the downsides of current DRM implementations is a lack of interoperability. It's hard to imagine that those interoperability problems won't get worse, particularly as some of the music download sites that have popped up go out of business. Of course, with so much of modern entertainment strategy revolving around getting consumers to pay for the same content multiple times, it's hard to see Big Content really caring.
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Stick to DRM free stuff or CDs.
I'll buy a CD if i really like an artist - fair enough. But unless they are in my fav list they get downloaded pirate style. I'm certainly not paying for DRM'd stuff. I like portability and music being able to last past the software i currently use.
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I'm not going to buy something that restricts my usage like DRM does on something that I've paid for and own. I do respect copyright law however.
Many times I can find what I want used on Ebay or something.
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Already happened
Anyone know what happened there, would be a good marker?
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JonathanB
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