Not All Venture Money Chasing Me Too Plays >>
<< Legal Free Music On The Way
 tdicon 


Say That Again

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Dec 22nd 2003 12:48pm





Walmart's Music Download Terms Say You Don't Own A Thing

from the we-own-everything dept

While Walmart made a splash last week introducing their cheaper music downloading service, the folks over at the EFF have noticed that the end user license agreement is particularly painful in basically telling you that you haven't bought a damn thing. You can't do anything with the music you've supposedly "bought". You certainly aren't allowed to resell it - taking away the "right of first sale". All Walmart seems to be doing is giving you a temporary license to listen to music as long as Walmart remains happy with you. As Fred von Lohmann at the EFF says: "Current DRM has nothing to do with preventing piracy, everything to do with impairing consumer rights, competition and innovation."

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..


If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Dec 22nd, 2003 @ 2:30pm



    http://www.breathingplanet.net/whirl/

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    Robert Giese, Sep 16th, 2004 @ 12:10am

    I am an artist currently residing in Athens, GA and I am working on a project called Music Wal-Mart Won’t Sell. The piece will be an installation consisting of a room full of CDs. Obviously, the CDs will all contain music that Wal-Mart will not sell in there retail or online venues. I will chart and promenently display the information from all CDs and give credit to the artists. The list of artists will be the primary text (not withstanding an explanation of the piece). A list of contributors will be the secondary text. What I am asking you to do is solicit all of the Musicians you know for a demo CD—the bands need to label each CD with the name of the band, the date they donated the CD, the last venue they played, and a short sentence describing the band. The piece will not make any reference to any musician that is marketed by Wal-Mart. However, musicians that have compromised their artistic integrity in order to be marketed by Wal-Mart will be mentioned. Media attention will be aggressively sought and is almost guaranteed considering the town I am displaying in (Athens, GA) and the fact that the worlds largest company is the subject (and target of criticism). Please send any info and/or questions to:

    Robert Giese
    430 Milledge Terrace
    Athens, GA 30606

    [email protected]

    Thanks,
    Robert

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Songs last a year

    identicon
    Mark Vassmer, Nov 20th, 2005 @ 2:08pm

    I just found out that two months ago, Walmart.com changed their policies and will no longer fix a broken license. In other words, when I first bought my music from them a year ago, they told me that if something happened to the license, they would fix it. They did this once this year when I changed computers. When I discovered today some additional music that didn't transfer right, they advised me of the new policy.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Save me a cookie
  • Note: A CRLF will be replaced by a break tag (<br>), all other allowable HTML will remain intact
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>


Not All Venture Money Chasing Me Too Plays >>
<< Legal Free Music On The Way
 tdicon 

A word from our Sponsors...
Follow Techdirt
Flattr rss rss

Powered by Postrank

From the Techdirt Archive...
A word from our Sponsors...

Close

Email This