Filed under: Web services, P2P
Sony confirms closure of 'Connect' music store - paying customers get stung by DRM
Sony's Connect music store has been around a fair while, in fact, a fair while longer than perhaps some of us expected. Sony -- a company once so powerful and successful in portable music -- cooked up the Connect service as a response to Apple's all-powerful iTunes Store. The plan was a store to supply music to the dozen or so users who bought one of its NetMD or MP3 players, and couldn't play media on these devices in a format other than Sony's proprietary ATRAC-3 format.*Of course, Sony is also a record-label and (as with all of Sony's digital music efforts) the Connect service was clearly put in front of some executives who were absolutely terrified of the 'Cloverfield monster' otherwise known as piracy. The executives, so hell-bent on protecting their content, forgot that actually they had to sell the service to the public and decided that they'd allow Connect, but that the DRM would be so visible and limited that no-one would dare think of pirating music again. If you hadn't guessed, here at Download Squad, some of us have 'issues' with Sony's digital mis-steps -- issues best explained in another post -- so we'll skip forward to the present day.
Sony has, as announced, re-affirmed their plans to pull the plug on the North American Connect store at the end of March. Not only is the store closing, but if you upgrade your computer in the future, you can kiss goodbye to any tracks you previously bought. This tidbit is taken from the Sony FAQs:
"What will happen to my library (content I own)?
You will continue to be able to play, manage, and transfer the music in your SonicStage library and on your ATRAC player. For music purchased via CONNECT, this means you may continue to enjoy it as usual in your current PC configuration in accordance with our terms of use."
That's right, through the joys of DRM -- if you change your computer, your Connect-purchased music will no longer play. Though it's been said routinely before, we'll state it again. DRM does not prevent piracy. DRM merely shafts loyal, paying customers who choose to legitimately obtain their media online. More often than not, those customers are not so tech-savvy, and end up being stung by stores such as Google Video and Connect shutting up shop.
Much to our chagrin, Sony is now touting that "We are moving to the open Windows Media platform in North America." As a hint for future reference: there's nothing 'open' about the Windows Media platform. Not that you were planning to buy anything from a future Sony music store anyway.
Download Squad does not condone or encourage the illicit downloading & sharing of any copyrighted works.
[Via BoingBoing]
"What will happen to my library (content I own)?
You will continue to be able to play, manage, and transfer the music in your SonicStage library and on your ATRAC player. For music purchased via CONNECT, this means you may continue to enjoy it as usual in your current PC configuration in accordance with our terms of use."
That's right, through the joys of DRM -- if you change your computer, your Connect-purchased music will no longer play. Though it's been said routinely before, we'll state it again. DRM does not prevent piracy. DRM merely shafts loyal, paying customers who choose to legitimately obtain their media online. More often than not, those customers are not so tech-savvy, and end up being stung by stores such as Google Video and Connect shutting up shop.
Much to our chagrin, Sony is now touting that "We are moving to the open Windows Media platform in North America." As a hint for future reference: there's nothing 'open' about the Windows Media platform. Not that you were planning to buy anything from a future Sony music store anyway.
Download Squad does not condone or encourage the illicit downloading & sharing of any copyrighted works.
[Via BoingBoing]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
recon said 1:43AM on 2-02-2008
question: couldnt you just burn your DRMd music to cd and then rip back to mp3 on the other computer? I dont know how sony connect works, so i'm just askin' the question.
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Adm. K said 2:31AM on 2-02-2008
I haven't used Sony's service, but I would assume that it works like other music download services and allows you to burn your music to CD. However, if you were to rip that CD to your computer, you would end up with an MP3 of lesser quality than the original given the way the lossy encoding works. This is why it is preferable (although technically illegal in the US) to strip the DRM from your original files instead, because doing so maintains the original quality.
bowlby4 said 2:28AM on 2-02-2008
I enter a lot of sweepstakes and won about a fifty free downloads from Sony. I use HI-MD Renderer to bypass the DRM and create mp3
http://www.marcnetsystem.co.uk/cgi-shl/mn2.pl?ti=1201937162?drs=,V83M0R564,39,2,
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Tony2X said 10:52AM on 2-02-2008
"DRM does not prevent piracy.", never a truer statement. DRM actually creates piracy because I'd buy music online if it were DRM free rather than make my own MP3s from whatever source is appropriate.
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Jamar said 1:07PM on 2-02-2008
Meanwhile, their Japanese online music store (it's called Mora and it's at http://mora.jp )is still using ATRAC3 and going strong. On the other hand, they actually make life easy on the (Japanese) customer. You can relicense your songs if your computer breaks, something which the North America store didn't seem to want to do. But, they have IP restrictions- if you're not getting in from a Japanese IP, they won't let you buy. Stupid.
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