Guess what? Wal-Mart reverses course on DRM servers

Well, duh. Just weeks after Wal-Mart told customers that it would shut off the servers that support its old DRM-protected music tracks—and stepped into a predictable morass of bad PR in the bargain—the retail giant changes its tune.

Music lovers who'd previously bought and downloaded copy-protected tracks from Wal-Mart's online music store (which stopped selling DRM'd tunes back in December, and now only sells DRM-free MP3 tracks) just got an e-mail announcing the abrupt policy change. 

The message (intercepted by Engadget) reads, in part: "Based on feedback from our customers, we have decided to maintain our digital rights management (DRM) servers for the present time. What this means to you is that our existing service continues and there is no action required on your part."

Had Wal-Mart gone ahead and turned off its DRM servers on schedule (the plan was to pull the switch on October 8, just a couple of days ago), anyone unfortunate enough to have downloaded DRM-protected tunes from Wal-Mart would have been unable to move those tracks to a new PC—ever. (Users could have burned their Wal-Mart tracks to CD and re-ripped them to MP3s, but not without losing audio quality in the process.)

A shocker? Not really. MSN Music tried to pull the same stunt with its former music customers, but decided to keep its DRM servers on after the inevitably outcry. Yahoo! Music was scheduled to turn off the DRM servers for its now-shuttered Unlimited service back on Sept. 30, but has reportedly agreed to give customers coupons for copy-protection-free MP3 replacement tracks through Y! Music partner Rhapsody. (Note: Yahoo! Music and Yahoo! Tech are, of course, both properties of Yahoo!.)

So, why did Wal-Mart put itself through the bad publicity when it could have learned from the Microsoft and Yahoo!? Perhaps it wanted to guage the response before committing itself to keeping its DRM servers operational—or maybe Wal-Mart execs weren't keeping up with the news.

Either way, I'm happy to see that Wal-Mart got smart—and got with the program.

Related:
Walmart has a change of heart, decides to maintain DRM servers [Engadget]