Dying Virgin urges punters: "rip to CD"

VIRGIN DIGITAL is advising all its music customers to burn DRM'd tracks bought from its store to CD, and re-rip them as DRM-free MP3.

We kid ye not.

The service is being shut down this month, after lacklustre take up. However, since Virgin sold tunes with Windows Media DRM on, those who have bought songs already will have their licenses die when the store shuts down, thus rendering their paid-for music useless.

In a website posting, Virgin suggests that customers download their tracks and burn them out to a CD, allowed by the Windows DRM, thus circumventing the copy protection and allowing them to play on post closure.

The shop closure is an example of just why the anti-DRM brigade is constantly warning about the evils of copy protection. Should the copy protection enabler go out of business, those legally buying songs are totally screwed - unlike those who pirated the tracks.

With Apple continuing to dominate the market and Windows Media looking like a dead format for portable tunes, how long before we see another Windows-based shop folding, locking out even more customers? µ