mtv

Hey, Napster? Thanks for making it an absolute pain in the ass to cancel our account – yet another reason to abandon your service. I had to call a phone number to tell you that I wanted to quit. Why?

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So, I’m getting ready for a trip to Colorado Springs for my future brother-in-law’s nuptuals. I figured I’d give the Clix a shot with Urge. I fire up the Windows Media Player and… blammo:

Read more on Windows Media DRM is Corrupted…

I’m not the first (and I certainly won’t be the last) person to claim that DRM sucks. But DRM doesn’t stand for “Digital Rights Management.” No, it’s really an acronym for “Dramatic Resource Mangler.” Here’s the problem I’m now running into: I’ve currently got a subscription to Napster, a trial account with Rhapsody, and another trial account with MTV’s URGE. That’s three separate subscriptions I’ve got floating across all my systems. Now, I’ve already downloaded Pearl Jam’s new album through Napster. I can’t listen to it in either Rhapsody or URGE. I’ve paid for it already! So, let’s say I turn off Napster and switch to URGE. I’d have to download the album again. What’s more, Windows Media Player / Windows Explorer doesn’t tell me where the album came from – I have to guess. I have to play (by trial and error) to see which albums are supported by which service. THIS IS MADNESS! Why can’t the individual file detect which service I’m paying for and then adjust itself accordingly? Why must I maintain three DRM’ed versions of the same song?

Read more on Why DRM Sucks…