Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 1 Nov 2011 09:45:23 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111031/13425616573/ding-dong-another-drm-is-dead-with-it-all-files-you-thought-you-bought.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111031/13425616573/ding-dong-another-drm-is-dead-with-it-all-files-you-thought-you-bought.shtml Greetings! This is another reminder to convert RAX music files NOW to avoid losing any of your music. We want to make sure you can continue to enjoy all your music for as long as you please.

On November 7th, 2011 Rhapsody/RealNetworks will no longer support certain music files you purchased before July 2008. These songs will continue to play after November 7th unless you change to a new computer or substantially update your current computer. However, we strongly recommend you back up these RAX tracks to audio CD to ensure you can continue to enjoy your music.

Once you take this small step, you can continue to play these tracks on your audio CD or rip them to any format you desire and play them on your PC.

Please don't delay - after we shut off support for RAX files, you will not be able to play them if you move to a new computer or upgrade your operating system. I like how Rhapsody pretends that backing up all these songs to CDs, then re-ripping them back to your computer, is just "a small step."

In the meantime, those who continue to insist that music is "licensed" and not "bought," can you explain what happened here? If the music was truly "licensed," why can't Rhapsody just provide non-DRM'd versions of the same music? Once again, all this really does is make you wonder why anyone "buys" any DRM'd product.

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