This is exactly what you can do to get around it. DRM won't follow the music to a CD, so you can burn it all to CD, re-rip it and you are fine, in fact you could do that now and not deal with the DRM again.
I can't say this is surprising, the service is defunct, and with Zune and Amazon offering DRM free stuff, I think that the large companies are finally "getting" it.
Can they do this? That's something else entirely. No, contractually they can't. The recording label owns the music, not you, not Microsoft. They signed agreements on what they would offer, charge, and pay to the music companies. There is a HIGH degree of certainty in the statements that
A) You never write in caveats in business agreements about what you will do if the business fails - that will never get you business partners, but will make them scatter. Failures are a reality, but no one wants to address them or talk about them, especially when a new business is starting.
B) When you think about failures of a company, there is never jargon entered into contracts about how to handle things in the event that the business fails (see point A).
I highly doubt MS want's to piss people off or inconvenience potential future customers, but that said, they also cannot legally give the music away now.
Yes. You can burn to CD. But ripping the music back compressed it again resulting in loss of quality. It's like take a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. So if you are happy with taking your 128kbs file and making it into a 96kbs
Burning and re-ripping introduces two more format transitions. If you started with 128 kbit (yuck) music, now you're probably at 96 kbit levels (terrible). People give the companies too much slack for the "burning loophole" - it's not a 1:1 conversion, people! It could be, if the original format was lossless, but we haven't had the option to buy lossless music online since AllOfMP3 disappeared. I do not accept that as a valid option or excuse for DRM.
@Neal's second comment:
Let's take this to its logical conclusion. Hypothetically, all media (including books) could become digitally distributed at some time in the future. A modern analogue of Shakespeare comes along, signs a contract and begins writing for a particular company whose products cannot be displayed without a check to a DRM server. He isn't recognized as a literary great immediately, his work doesn't make much money, and the company goes under taking their DRM servers with them. Suddenly, we AS A CULTURE have irretrievably lost part of our history.
That is unacceptable. There should be LAWS on the books that any implementation of DRM can and will be completely removed from every file it infects when: A) The work in question transitions into the public domain B) The owner of the work in question ceases to distribute / attempt to profit off of the work (this covers corporate failures & policy changes as in TFA's case)
Anything else is simply unacceptable. Disclaimer: I have never once purchased music online and never will until non-DRM-infected, lossless options become legally available. Until then, it's CDs (not from Sony/BMG) or nothing.
If you want to end up with the mp3 or whatever compressed format you choose, you don't want to do this. Taking a compressed format, expanding it to CD audio, then re-ripping it is going to leave you with terrible sounding files. It's like running jpeg compression on top of a jpeg, you only want to compress once.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
HuntWorks @ Apr 23rd 2008 7:12AM
I knew this was coming. Just burn off everything to CD before August 31st and you'll survive.
crho85 @ Apr 23rd 2008 10:19AM
I'm not very familiar with drm's.... what if you burn to a cd and then rip said cd? I'm not making a joke, I just am ignorant on the issue?
Neal @ Apr 23rd 2008 10:29AM
This is exactly what you can do to get around it. DRM won't follow the music to a CD, so you can burn it all to CD, re-rip it and you are fine, in fact you could do that now and not deal with the DRM again.
I can't say this is surprising, the service is defunct, and with Zune and Amazon offering DRM free stuff, I think that the large companies are finally "getting" it.
adrian @ Apr 23rd 2008 10:45AM
Should you have to do this?, Microsoft should just unlock it for all their users,By doing this they are being outright bastards.
Neal @ Apr 23rd 2008 10:58AM
Should they do this? I think so.
Can they do this? That's something else entirely. No, contractually they can't. The recording label owns the music, not you, not Microsoft. They signed agreements on what they would offer, charge, and pay to the music companies. There is a HIGH degree of certainty in the statements that
A) You never write in caveats in business agreements about what you will do if the business fails - that will never get you business partners, but will make them scatter. Failures are a reality, but no one wants to address them or talk about them, especially when a new business is starting.
B) When you think about failures of a company, there is never jargon entered into contracts about how to handle things in the event that the business fails (see point A).
I highly doubt MS want's to piss people off or inconvenience potential future customers, but that said, they also cannot legally give the music away now.
Khurt Louis Francis Elliot Williams @ Apr 23rd 2008 8:13PM
Yes. You can burn to CD. But ripping the music back compressed it again resulting in loss of quality. It's like take a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. So if you are happy with taking your 128kbs file and making it into a 96kbs
Josh Warner @ Apr 23rd 2008 1:56PM
@Neal, first comment:
Burning and re-ripping introduces two more format transitions. If you started with 128 kbit (yuck) music, now you're probably at 96 kbit levels (terrible). People give the companies too much slack for the "burning loophole" - it's not a 1:1 conversion, people! It could be, if the original format was lossless, but we haven't had the option to buy lossless music online since AllOfMP3 disappeared. I do not accept that as a valid option or excuse for DRM.
@Neal's second comment:
Let's take this to its logical conclusion. Hypothetically, all media (including books) could become digitally distributed at some time in the future. A modern analogue of Shakespeare comes along, signs a contract and begins writing for a particular company whose products cannot be displayed without a check to a DRM server. He isn't recognized as a literary great immediately, his work doesn't make much money, and the company goes under taking their DRM servers with them. Suddenly, we AS A CULTURE have irretrievably lost part of our history.
That is unacceptable. There should be LAWS on the books that any implementation of DRM can and will be completely removed from every file it infects when:
A) The work in question transitions into the public domain
B) The owner of the work in question ceases to distribute / attempt to profit off of the work (this covers corporate failures & policy changes as in TFA's case)
Anything else is simply unacceptable. Disclaimer: I have never once purchased music online and never will until non-DRM-infected, lossless options become legally available. Until then, it's CDs (not from Sony/BMG) or nothing.
jollyllama @ Apr 23rd 2008 2:06PM
If you want to end up with the mp3 or whatever compressed format you choose, you don't want to do this. Taking a compressed format, expanding it to CD audio, then re-ripping it is going to leave you with terrible sounding files. It's like running jpeg compression on top of a jpeg, you only want to compress once.
the.seth.kirby @ Apr 23rd 2008 2:24PM
fairuse4wm
Look it up