Walmart has a change of heart, decides to maintain DRM servers

Back by popular demand, it's the Walmart DRM servers! You heard right -- just days after Wally World announced its plans to turn the screw on its digital rights management servers, we're now being shown a big "just kidding." According to an e-mail (posted in full after the break) sent out to previous downloaders, the mega-corp be leaving things as-is for the foreseeable future, and it's all because of "feedback from the customers." In other words, those actions it urged you to take late last month are no longer required, though we'd still back those tracks up on CD just in case. Can't be too careful, you know.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

NOTE: This is a follow-up to our email titled "Important Information About Your Digital Music Purchases" from 9/26/08.

Based on feedback from our customers, we have decided to maintain our digital rights management (DRM) servers for the present time. What this means to you is that our existing service continues and there is no action required on your part. Our customer service team will continue to assist with DRM issues for protected windows media audio (WMA) files purchased from Walmart.com.

While our customer support team is available to assist you with any issues, we continue to recommend that you back up your songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD. By backing up your songs, you insure access to them from any personal computer at any time in the future.

We appreciate your support and patience as we work to provide the best service possible to you. As we move forward with our 100% MP3 store, we'll continue to update you with key decisions regarding our service and your account via email.

Thank you for using Walmart MP3 Music Downloads.

The Walmart Digital Music Team

[Connor650 Posted Oct 10th 2008 1:03AM]

Lol.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 10th 2008 1:21AM]

more like rofl but yea I like LOL to

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 10th 2008 1:50AM]

They'll wait 6 months to a year. Wait for things to calm and then quietly try to kill them again. Mark my word.

[collegekid13 Posted Oct 10th 2008 1:11AM]

i belive homer says this best

DOH!

[iofthestorm Posted Oct 10th 2008 1:28AM]

Wow, wal-mart fails at grammar. It's ensure, not insure.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 10th 2008 4:36AM]

more like usage and/or arguably spelling, but yeah either way Wal Mart sucks ;)

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 10th 2008 1:55AM]

Whatever. Walmart still sucks a big fat pepperoni. Screw them!

[brad77 Posted Oct 10th 2008 1:58AM]

Surprise!!!

[James Posted Oct 10th 2008 2:14AM]

My spoons too big...my spoon is tooooo big.

Sorry had to do it, love the avatar. Makes me want to youtube rejected.

[brad77 Posted Oct 10th 2008 7:35PM]

Let me save you the trouble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSb-nV8l2QY

"I am a banana!"

[rTwelve Posted Oct 10th 2008 2:24AM]

Neither "Wal-Mart" nor "DRM" should ever have popular demand.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 10th 2008 3:32AM]

I want to see the feedback from customers. Walmart probably got insulted a few times, and based on that, they said, "Oh yeah? Then we'll bring the DRM back to you whiny bitchez."

[maccolar Posted Oct 10th 2008 5:23AM]

I hate drm, why walmart can't just let people re-download the music without the drm? I have to use this drm converter again to remove the drm from my pruchased music, that's not cool.

[Kenjis9965 Posted Oct 10th 2008 10:01PM]

Because then the music industry would get all pissed because you owe them more money you see

Every time you download it stops Britney Spears from getting a Gulfstream IV or that Soulja Boy idiot getting himself a nice big hummer with 36" spinner rims of death

You see everytime you download you....ugh you know what? I cant even fake the BS

Its your music, you should be entitled to a fucking refund if they want to pull the DRM servers down based upon an expectation of continued service :/ The problem is, they will pull the plug on these DRM servers eventually and then you'll be completely $^%$%ed

Not to mention I'd bet the large number of WalMart customers probubly didnt even understand that first email, at all

I suppose for someone who hates DRM its ironic I also have a pretty large collection of purchased music from the ITMS, I guess because I trust Apple more than Microsoft in these matters, and so far, the ITMS [love it or hate it] is the most successful online music store, partially because its DRM isnt that bad really, especially compared to the Microsoft and PlaysForSure crap [From what I heard at least]

Plus, I've always felt WMA/WMV was fairly poor quality....maybe its just the few things I ever had in it though..

[conscious Posted Oct 10th 2008 9:56AM]

based on feedback from customers? let's think about this for a second.

1. nobody likes drm.
2. nobody wants drm.
3. 99.99999% of wal mart customers do not know what drm is
-

i wish someone would take them to task for that statement because it's obvious bullshit. an executive probably signed off on taking down the drm servers without looking at the document, and then reversed it when he googled 'drm' a couple days later.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 10th 2008 11:08AM]

Oh man, that's so true in so many ways. Happens where I work all the time.

[tooodles Posted Oct 10th 2008 1:01PM]

lol a law should be made so companies have to fund drm servers for a hundred years:)

make them think twice.