Walmart: all your music are belong to you (for now)

Davey Winder
Sunday, 12 October 2008 16:10

Business IT - Networking

So what has changed in the wonderful world of Walmart? Well, consumer pressure seems to have forced the retail giant into backtracking on its decision.

A Walmart email received by customers, and passed on to us, reveals that due to "feedback from our customers" the company has "decided to maintain our digital rights management servers for the present time."

It continues that "As we move forward with our 100% MP3 store, we'll continue to update you with key decisions regarding our service and your account via email."

The email states that "our existing service continues and there is no action required on your part" and also attempts to assure customers that the Walmart customer service team will "assist with DRM issues for protected windows media audio (WMA) files purchased from Walmart.com" which is obviously a good thing.

So although it does not say 'forever' so should perhaps be considered a stay of execution rather than a pardon. It does provide some breathing space for customers to burn CDs and save their collections.

Indeed, the email suggests exactly that by stating that "While our customer support team is available to assist you with any issues, we continue to recommend that you back up your songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD."

Well done to Walmart, then, for listening to customers in the end. Shame it didn't just think about them in the first place, before the broad brush of bad publicity was painted across the brand online though...