WAL-MART Cuts Dated DRM Server

Digital Rights Management has quickly become an evolutionary speed-bump in the progress of digital downloads as retailers looking to remain at the helm of the fickle market are altogether abandoning the antiquated mp3 protection. That does not come without its problems, though, as Wal-Mart has decided to completely sever all DRM servers prior to February of this year by October 9.

Digital Rights Management has quickly become an evolutionary speed-bump in the progress of digital downloads as retailers looking to remain at the helm of the fickle market are altogether abandoning the antiquated mp3 protection. That does not come without its problems, though, as Wal-Mart has decided to completely sever all DRM servers prior to February of this year by October 9. A untold bulk of their library that users have invested their pennies and cents in will now be lost to the void, leaving faithful buyers to fend for themselves if they hope to retain their catalogs.

Though the Digital Millennium Copyright Act will slip quietly into property law past as DRM altogether recedes, the law’s restrictions on reproducing said digital music remains a problem. For users to keep their purchases, Wal-Mart suggests in a notification e-mail to their myriad users that they burn their songs to CD-Rs – which, conveniently enough, can be purchased at cut-rate prices on Wally World shelves – despite federals laws against such copyright infringement.

As any data-disc junkie knows, circumventing such laws is all too easy and doesn’t practically pose much of a threat for Wal-Mart users hoping to keep their digital copy of the Eagle’s Long Road Out of Eden. Still, nitpicking audiophiles have complained about losing their precious metadata through such CD-R burns, as well as an inevitable loss in quality from what should be unnecessary duplication. Whether Wal-Mart will address these concerns in the near future and replace obsolete DRM files pro bono with security-free mp3s is yet to be seen; meanwhile, it’s probably better to ask what blue can do for you in the electronics aisle.