It looks as if DRM has taken away people’s music again. The following letter from Wal*Mart was posted by Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing. I’m trusting to Cory’s credibility, because I have been unable to verify it from other sources. I think it speaks for itself:
From: Walmart Music Team
Date: Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 7:42 PM
Subject: Important Information About Your Walmart.com Digital Music Purchases
To: xxxxxx@gmail.com
Important Information About Your Digital Music Purchases
We hope you are enjoying the increased music quality/bitrate and the improved usability of Walmart’s MP3 music downloads. We began offering MP3s in August 2007 and have offered only DRM (digital rights management) -free MP3s since February 2008. As the final stage of our transition to a full DRM-free MP3 download store, Walmart will be shutting down our digital rights management system that supports protected songs and albums purchased from our site.
If you have purchased protected WMA music files from our site prior to Feb 2008, we strongly recommend that you back up your songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD. By backing up your songs, you will be able to access them from any personal computer. This change does not impact songs or albums purchased after Feb 2008, as those are DRM-free.
Beginning October 9, we will no longer be able to assist with digital rights management issues for protected WMA files purchased from Walmart.com. If you do not back up your files before this date, you will no longer be able to transfer your songs to other computers or access your songs after changing or reinstalling your operating system or in the event of a system crash. Your music and video collections will still play on the originally authorized computer.
Thank you for using Walmart.com for music downloads. We are working hard to make our store better than ever and easier to use.
Indeed, this is the great fear. An entire generation of arts lost forever to working, but unreadable and no-longer-supported DRM.
Maybe future archaeologists will be searching for ‘Rosetta stones’ to decrypt DRM files.
And maybe it’s time for somebody like Cory to write an update on ‘Fahrenheit 451′ where the speakers are the underground that has the tools to crack DRM, and the firemen are the media cartels’ secret police, granted extraordinary extrajudicial powers to track down and destroy all violations of DCMA — even where the DRM is abandoned and the files are elsewise worthless.
The hero might be an obscure booklover laboring in the bowels of the Library of Congress, a la Dr ‘Indiana’ Jones…
(Just forego the ‘Short Round’ please.)