So, the major record companies may be in the process of dismantling the disastrous tower of digital rights management they built in recent years, but the PR damage caused by their idiotic insistence that tracks sold via a la carte download platforms come with DRM limitations, a strategy that clueless out-of-their-depth really-should-have-been-fired-years-ago senior label execs hung onto years after its foolishness was obvious to anyone with even the most basic understanding of digital music, will continue. And the majors will have no control over some of that PR damage because, as much previously ranted, one of the biggest problems with DRM is that it gives all the power to the IT firms that make it.
Microsoft have announced that they will stop supporting tracks bought via their MSN Music download platform as of 31 Aug this year. What this means is that, while songs bought via MSN Music will continue to play, if a user transfers those tracks to another computer - ie because they buy a new one - then the songs will stop working. When Microsoft DRMed songs are transferred to a new device they need to download a licence key from the MSN Music servers in order for it to play - that requirement is designed to monitor and control how many devices a users puts their music on. Which is all well and good, except that as of the end of August the MSN Music licence key servers will be turned off. Meaning music bought via the download platform will only work on the user's current computer. You might think that that is a very shit deal for music fans, and you'd be right. The only silver lining is that not many people bought tracks from MSN Music, which closed down in 2006 after Microsoft launched its new and totally incompatible download venture Zune.
MSN's Rob Bennett alerted those who did buy MSN tracks back in the day about the finite future of their digital music collections in an email sent out on Tuesday. It informed them: "As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers. You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play".
Of course owners of MSN-Music-bought music will be able to give tracks a longer life by burning them to CD (as the DRM allows) and then ripping them as non-DRMed MP3 files, though tech types point out this isn't ideal because the WMA files supplied by MSN Music are already quite compressed and another burn and rip to MP3 will affect sound quality.
All this arguably reflects badly on the record companies as well as Microsoft, even though they don't have any control over whether or not MSN Music tracks are supported. And in some ways the record companies should take some responsibility - because this kind of scenario was so predictable, and the fact major label chiefs, who persisted with their DRM strategies until as little as four months ago, failed to prepare for it is a major failing. But let's not dwell on the past, and instead put the accelerator on these promises to go fully DRM free in the a-la-carte download market, and ensure future commercial decisions by software makers don't have a negative impact on music fans.