Microsoft down with MSN Music DRM keys
Microsoft just announced that it will no longer supply authorization keys for songs purchased from the defunct MSN Music service.
Customers are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it’s done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer.
If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play. You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008.
This doesn’t just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize, it also applies to operating systems on the same machine (users need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, for example). Once September rolls around, users are committed to whatever five machines they may have authorized—along with whatever OS they are running.
Another option for MSN Music customers would be burning all of their music to audio CD and then re-ripping them back to the computer as MP3s. But that’s going to be a real pain.
[Via arstechnica]
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