Last 100 reviews DRM disasters
By Paul Biba
Last 100’s editor, Steve O’Hear has a nice article entitled “Five companies that sold customers down the DRM-filled river”. Let me quote from his opening: “The news last week that Microsoft plans to turn off its verification servers for its now-defunct MSN Music store, is a stark reminder of the potential pitfalls customers face whenever they purchase content crippled by Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. Any digital store that sells or loans you content in a copy-protected format makes you a hostage to that store or format’s commercial success. The Microsoft example, however, is just one of many. Here are five cases where companies have sold their customers down the DRM-filled river.”
Steve mentions the following: Major League Baseball, who changed DRM systems; Google, who announced the closing of its video download store; Sony, who ditched the ATRAC format and announced the closing of its Sony Connect music store; Virgin Music, who announced the closing of its music store; and Microsoft, mentioned above.
Of course, given the major names involved, this doesn’t give the public much confidence that their ebooks will be available in the future. The article is well worth reading.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
This would have to be the number one reason why I don’t buy things with DRM. I’m yet to buy music via iTunes too.