DRM sucks redux: Microsoft pulling plug on MSN Music DRM
Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft's now-defunct MSN Music store 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.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's MSN Music store is already defunct, but the DRM it sold still depends on Microsoft's authorization servers — and those are now being switched off. Buyers face a forced choice: permanently lock in their existing computer authorizations or lose access to music they paid for. The episode lands amid a broader crackup of the DRM era: researchers had already demonstrated how fragile these schemes were back in 2005, and Microsoft itself was exploring watermarking as a DRM-free alternative.
First-order effects
- MSN Music customers must immediately decide which computers (and operating systems) to authorize forever — any future hardware upgrade, OS reinstall, or machine failure means losing access to purchased tracks.
- Microsoft effectively ends its support obligations for a store it already abandoned, shifting the cost of server maintenance onto customers' permanent licensing decisions.
Second-order effects
- Every other retailer still running DRMed download stores — Wal-Mart among them — faces the same endgame question of what happens when its own DRM servers go dark, as Wal-Mart's later server shutdown would confirm months afterward.
- Customer backlash over stranded purchases gives ammunition to DRM-free arguments at the labels and to subscription services like the ones Microsoft and the labels were then still clinging to, pressuring the industry toward license models where the provider, not the buyer, bears continuity risk.
Third-order effects
- The pattern — stores die, servers shut off, purchases evaporate — becomes the core argument for either DRM-free sales or streaming subscriptions, reshaping how digital music ownership is defined; even years later, when Microsoft retired Groove Music Pass, it pointed users to Spotify rather than defending another walled library.
- Regulators and consumer advocates gain a concrete exhibit that 'buying' DRMed media is closer to a revocable license, feeding longer-term pressure on disclosure of digital-goods permanence.
The trend: The slow collapse of per-file DRM toward DRM-free downloads and streaming subscriptions, where access depends on a living service rather than a perpetual license.