Was MTV's Rhapsody Decision Really Punishment For Microsoft Abandoning PlaysForSure?
from the playsforsure,-huh? dept
We chalked up MTV's decision to drop Microsoft for RealNetworks in its online music store efforts to MTV's typical internet bumbling. However, there is another interesting possibility. MTV dumped Microsoft to punish the company for pulling the rug out from under them when it killed off "PlaysForSure" DRM. You may recall that Microsoft used to have its own DRM that it tried to get pushed as an industry standard. The company called it "PlaysForSure" in a bit of marketing hubris to try to make sure people felt comfortable with it. There was just one teensy problem. When Microsoft decided to get into the business of selling its own digital music players, it wouldn't support PlaysForSure, making the name that much more ironic. When your own digital music players won't play your own PlaysForSure DRM files, you have a problem. Not only did it screw over all the users who had been buying PlaysForSure files, it hurt all the different music stores, including MTV's, that had bet on PlaysForSure. So, with that in mind, it's no wonder that MTV decided to find someone else to partner with. Of course, you can still point out that MTV should have known better than to trust in Microsoft's DRM, but that's an issue for another day.
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Filed Under: drm, playsforsure
Companies: microsoft, mtv
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http://home.real.com/product/help/rhapv3_ts/en/Rhapsody_Service.htm
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GoblinJuice
I think I might have to remember that one.
When will people learn? This whole DRM craze is no different then the rediculoulsy long serial keys used in software a decade ago - it does nothing to stop piracy and only serves to irritate the legitimate user.
Down With DRM!
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hmmm
My apologies.
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BWAHAHAHAHAHA......
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Plays for sure
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that page is out of date. although rhapsody does work with some janus devices, it has since released its own "rhapsody dna" which is starting to be incorporated into a variety of devices; this started with the sansa rhapsody from sandisk, which tightly integrates with features of the rhapsody subscription service. iriver has released a rhapsody dna device and more are coming.
this doesn't appease the "all drm is evil" crowd, i realize, but it's a viable alternative to playsforsure in a world where drm is a requirement for a subscription service.
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sf
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