Geek Activism

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:

• Major corporation launches music service with big PR blitz.
• Music is sold with DRM that prevents the songs to be listened to in devices and software of the customers choice.
• Customers buy said music- clearly the major corporation would never pull the plug on the service and so their music would live on for ever.
• Major corporation pulls the plug on their music service.
• The customers music turns to toxic digital pulp.

First it was MSN. Then Yahoo. And now WalMart. WalMart closed down its DRM-laden music service and told its customers that their DRM servers would be switched off, making the music they purchased unusable in the long run.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before but there were an outcry and WalMart has now said the DRM servers will stay powered. Just as MSN and Yahoo did in the past.

Video and eBook DRM- you’re up next!

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• Save the Internet and Network Neutrality