“The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Tuesday demanded that Microsoft issue refunds for MSN Music Store purchases that will be inaccessible after Microsoft deletes the music store servers this summer,” Chloe Albanesius reports for PC Magazine.
“Microsoft announced last week that as of August 31, the company will delete its MSN Music [PlaysForSure] license servers, so music purchased from the now-defunct MSN Music Store will be accessible only via the five computers you authorized to play the tunes,” Albanesius reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft’s PlaysForSure is going to be a long-term problem for Apple. – Rob Enderle, oft-quoted and oft-wrong paid mouthpiece, January 09, 2006
Albanesius continues, reporting that Shari Steele, EFF executive director, wrote an open letter on April 29, 2008 to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, “Steele called on Ballmer to formally apologize to customers affected by the change. Customers should also be offered a refund for music purchased, or replacements from an online store that offers the same tracks in a DRM-free format, she wrote.”
MacDailyNews Take: How nice of Microsoft and its partners to clearly identify devices, PCs and music services that won’t work well or at all with Apple’s market-dominating iTunes Music Store and even-more-dominating iPod… This’ll make it easier for consumers to avoid making expensive mistakes. They should’ve just called it ‘Don’tBuyThis.’ – MacDailyNews, October 15, 2004
Albanesius continues, “Microsoft general manager Rob Bennett told CNet last week that continued support for Music Store purchases was impractical, and that the focus should instead be placed on the Zune.”
MacDailyNews Take: Why focus on failure?
Albanesius continues, “‘No one ever foresaw being in this situation,’ Bennett said.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, Rob, plenty of people did, just no one at Microsoft. That’s what happens when you put a chimp in charge.
Albanesius continues, “Microsoft launched the MSN Music Store in September, 2004, in an effort to compete with Apple’s iTunes, but it never made much of a dent in iTunes’ business. Two years later, Microsoft started redirecting MSN Music Store shoppers to the Zune Marketplace.”
MacDailyNews Take: All three of them.
Albanesius’ full report is here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “HMCIV” for the heads up.]
OT, but just had to say my life is now complete! Thanks, MDN, for this (fast, fast, fast on iPhone):
http://twitter.com/macdailynews/
Rob Enderle Played For Sure.
Gotta tell you, going to the MDN link for Enderle’s comment, it was a lot of fun to read some of the responses. Some people had concerns some weren’t worried at all and now, two years later, MSN Music and Plays For Sure is dead. Two years isn’t very long for a product with such deep pockets as Microsoft.
I can’t see how much longer Ballmer can last. How many people is he going to shoot in the foot until they take the gun away?
Thanks for the reminder thread MDN, my graphic is still prophetic:
I didn’t even know MSN had a website, let along a music store. Weren’t they trying to buy a home page from Yahoo!???
Refunding all that music could cost Microsoft hundreds of dollars! Maybe even thousands!
Issuing rebates to consumers for every PlaysForSh*t track ever purchased would equate to a $42 hit to Microshaft’s earnings. Tops.
@HMCIV
great minds, etc.
I think that PFS sufferers should pool all their tracks, appending their collections, and claim refunds for those songs over and over again. =)
Yeah, I’m evil.
hmm. I don’t see why micro$oft would hesitate to offer refunds. Is it that they’d be embarrassed by having to pay out (only) $32 -?
The final chapter of “played for sure”
What?! Somebody out in the wild actually taking MS to task?! Of course the next question is, will they stick with it?
“Albanesius continues, ‘No one ever foresaw being in this situation,’ Bennett said.'”
O-M-G: It’s just so hard for me to believe that this kind of pc world-view still exists – but it does – doesn’t it.
Duh – MS screwed its partners… Duh – MS screwed its corporate clients… Duh – MS screwed me, and I love Windows – duh… I just didn’t see it coming! It’s so unusual for MS to do stuff like that..! Duh…
Dammit man – Will somebody wake up the world to the 100’s of millions of Dollars, Euros, Yen, Deutschemarks, etc., that are being doled out to MS every month of every year by corporations and private citizens alike. MS should really stand for MicroScrew, and its users should be called MR for MicroRetarded.
Ok ok, I’m sorry and I take it all back – except for the part about waking up the world. I admit I’ve gone too far this time. It’s just that, you’d think after getting gang-banged a couple of times joe and jane consumer would finally get it… Ok, ok, I’ve gone too far again, I apologies – except for the part about finally getting it. I just can’t help it, I really despise the whole MS world domination thing that has now become industry standard for global corps. Can you blame me?
Rob Underware should just shut up about anything related to Apple because he gets it wrong EVERY SINGLE TIME!!
And the tunetards in the music industry actually want to RAISE music prices?!? are they kidding?!? the ONLY thing they should be considering is LOWERING prices… make music an impulse buy…as it should be! albums for $5 and songs for…”a song”…
The morons don’t realize it’ll be easier to heat their pools and pay for their 3rd wife’s boob job if they LOWER prices!! Stupid fu*ktards..
Can’t they just burn the songs to a CD and re-rip to a digital file?
So here we have “frontier” organization griping about backwater technology. It just seems so incongruous.
No, they cant. Burning songs from those song rental services is not allowed. You would have to pay $0.99 for every song you burn to a CD (on top of the existing monthly subscription). Once this thing shuts down, they’ll have gigabytes of useless encrypted data sitting on their hard drives. If I understand correctly how it works, the DRM in the files checks every time you try to play it if the file’s expiration date hasn’t passed. If it has, it instructs the host player (WMP, or whatever) to contact the store and verify that the subscription has been paid. If you’re on a portable device, it tells you to sync your device with your primary PC, which in turn checks with the store for subscriptions. Once that store goes away, the files remain locked forever, leaving you with digital garbage…
At least fairplay will never ask again for re-authorisation. While it’s still DRM, it is at least somewhat less problematic. In an extremely unlikely event that iTunes store disappears, all the songs you have on your iTunes would continue to play on that computer, as well as any iPod connected to it, as long as you don’t reinstall the OS or re-format the hard drive on that PC. In addition, you could always salvage your music by burning it to CDs as standard audio CDs (with some negligible loss of audio quality, if you should re-rip them into unencrypted MP3/AAC).
Just take money out of the equation and you have the true nature of politics, regardless of political affiliation.
Domination.
“continued support for Music Store purchases was impractical”
The fact that Microsoft isn’t even offering a free cross-grade to the Zune format shows just how much they care about their past customers.
And their level of competence.
Every single person should email Rob Enderle his own quote along with the URL of that news story.
I was in a Borders store yesterday and actually saw a Zune case for sale, amidst dozens of iPod accessories.
I wonder if they have sold any yet.
MDN Word: “make,” as in “Why the hell did they make the Zune anyway? Just to cement their reputation for producing badly designed derivative crap?”
And the Edsel Award for Music Distribution goes to …
Paul Thurrott commented on the MSN music rip-off a few days ago.
Thurrott said that he was happy to bend over and take it.
Joe Wilcox isn’t happy to do that. He had rather a funny piece on it:
“Translation: Suckers, soon you won’t be able to reauthorize computers. You’d best buy those new Vista PCs before summer ends. Oh, and don’t forget that you have to play every song on every computer, or the rights go poof. We already said “suckers,” right?”
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_letter_from_msn_music.html
@ Cubert..
I think you have a typo….
“Rob Enderle Played For Sure”
should read:
“Rob Enderle Paid For sure”
With the trash he spews… not sure anyone can be that dumb without some major $$$ making it happen.
Paris Hilton is a great example. Granted she is not the brightest spark on the planet, but she is smart enough to know that if you act dumb, have a tiny “in” to the rich and famous, the media will flock to you, gain more publicity, in turn get more deals.
I have actually briefly met Paris while working at an Apple Specialist in Maui. I must say I have met way more obnoxious and flat out dumb people there than her.
The Dude abides
“chimp in charge” LOL
I love the alliteration.
“Chimp in charge”? Shouldn’t that be CHUMP in charge? Oh wait, even chimps would consider him a chump! He’s a chump chimp! Or is that chimp chump?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!