Yet Another DRM Failure Leaves Customers High And Dry
from the down-under dept
By now you should know this -- as DRM'd music service after DRM'd music service has screwed over their customers by shutting off the servers on the music they were supposed to be able to access -- but it's yet another reminder that if you buy into DRM'd products, you're going to end up screwed over. The latest, sent in by a bunch of you, is that Australian ISP, Bigpond (from Telstra), is shutting off its DRM servers that were used to support Windows Media Audio. Once again, the DRM did nothing to stop file sharing, but is making life difficult and annoying for legitimate customers.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: australia, bigpond, drm, music
Companies: bigpond, telstra
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1) Burn it to a CD using wmp10.
2) Copy the key files to another storage device, then copy them back after a hardware change.
I'm not necessarily happy that people will lose their purchased music when things like this happen, but I am happy that they will get a lesson in why DRM is bad for them. Typical consumers won't pay attention to issues until it starts to negatively affect them in a big way, so it helps that big media runs its own education plan by screwing customers over and over.
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The more the better
The more often people are reminded that DRM functions by pissing all over their consumer rights, the more likely they will allow that to influence their buying decisions.
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file sharing is not copyright infringement
I know you don't mean that, but using the term as a proxy for "sharing copyright infringing files" makes it so much simpler for those interests to characterise any p2p user as a "dirty thieving pirate". Its bad enough that line is then parroted by the unquestioning mainsteam media, but it would be good if those like you who know better could hold the line. Otherwise, "filesharing" just gets added to the other spin wins by rightsholding groups, like "piracy" and "copyright theft" and, as is happening here in NZ, OTT remedies like termination get portrayed as a reasonable way to curb the p2p scourge.
Just sayin'
Agree with your point though, which makes it all the more concerning that ACTA is looking to ram *more* DRM down signatories' throats.
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Re: file sharing is not copyright infringement
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If I Buy Something, Do I Own It?
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But Is This Legal?
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April fools joke?
April fools joke on DRM users?
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Perhep they should set up a foundation...
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Your Rental is UP!
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So true.
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Suckers!
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Ha ha ha! Funny DRM webcomic!
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wma
Today, most of these discs are scratched or damaged. Unfortunately the windows media player must have automatically added DRM to the files it ripped. None of the files play anymore (not sure why but they won't authenticate) and from my research it appears there is no remedy for this.
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DRM
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DRM
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