I recently purchased a new computer, leaving the old one attached to my home network for my daughter to use. Today, I finally got around to pulling my music files across. After they transferred, I clicked on one. Nothing. (I was trying to set a good example for my daughter after she’d seen the old Napster in action.) Error message: “song licenses are not available.” Grrr.
I call the vendor (WalMart). Already, I’m thinking that hassle may not be worth the 11 cents I saved on each track. Fifteen minutes later, I’ve got a page of notes from a very polite tech support person. An e-mail arrives with no less than seventeen steps to follow in order to restore the song licenses. They can only be restored to Windows Media Player and it has to be the same version as on the old computer - fat chance!
By this point, I’m beginning to like the old way to lose purchased music: the grooves get worn and scratchy. At least with that kind of gradual, palpable degradation it felt like you had some control (clean the LP, change the needle, jacket the disk, keep it from heat, etc.) "Is there any other way I can do this?" I ask. I’m well beyond the timeframe within which they’ve said they’ll restore lost licenses. But no worries - the tech rep has my entire purchase history at his fingertips. This is good! Wait, this is scary! He refrains from commenting on my musical taste. But for the first time in a long time, I experience a moment of serious privacy paranoia.
Thought #1: there’s no way I’m the only person with this problem. I'm not. The tech rep notes in passing that he spends his days doing exactly this - manually, song-by-song, restoring licenses for catalogs of hundreds of tunes whenever people upgrade their computers. Thought #2: there’s no way they’re making any money on this. Thought #3: if they’re keeping all of this information, they’re probably making money another way.
As a mature, customer-friendly technology with low transaction costs, digital rights management (DRM) still has a very long way to go.
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