Wal-Mart Joins Yahoo in Dumping Previously Purchased DRMed Files
Posted September 28, 2008 
Comments(2) Walmart just let customers know, via email, that if they don’t back up their DRMed songs before October 9th, they lose control of them. See, Wal-Mart, with all its billions of dollars, apparently doesn’t have the bucks to keep a simple DRM-verification server going to support all of its previous customers that bought DRM-infected (and yes, I do mean INFECTED!) files. In the words of Cory Doctorow…”Boy, the entertainment industry sure makes a good case for ripping them off, huh?” Here’s a copy of the letter sent to customers -
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. Walmart Music Team
