[He is] a sheep in sheep's clothing - Winston Churchill
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Volish MP3s get stay of execution
PURCHASERS OF MP3 music files from The Vole have managed to get themselves a stay of execution, as Microsoft announces that it will keep its DRM activation servers online until 2011.
The Vole's MSN Music store was part of the company's Plays For Sure campaign, a DRM lock-in that certified hardware players and software stores as compatible.
After dropping the service in favour of the newer, hipper, decidedly more fruity Zune Marketplace (which was totally incompatible with PFS), Microsoft had previously announced that it would be killing its DRM activation servers this August - meaning that anybody who upgraded their PC or had a hard drive crash would lose all their MSN purchased music... forever.
This caused a bit of a fracas - not unpredictably - as groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out that it was more than a little unfair to sell music with DRM in, then kill the DRM so the music became useless.
Now, in an email to subscribers, Microsoft has promised to keep its DRM servers alive, as long as there is 'customer demand'. We would suggest that users of any DRM'd music service keep regular CD-based backups to avoid similar entanglements. ยต
Tags: Microsoft
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...why DRM is rubbish!! it's all fine and dandy until something like this happens

Serves the idiots right for buying DRM'd stuff in the beginning
The UK MSN Music store has always been a storefront for Peter Gabriel's OD2, so UK consumers have nothing to worry about.

Yet.

I'm waiting for a competitor to Play.com for MP3 downloads. Their selection isn't great for my tastes. What the heck is taking Amazon UK so long?
The foolish buyers of that MSN music should start up a class action lawsuit. Has anyone already thought of this? Anytime DRM validation servers get shut down a lawsuit should start.
Not MP3s, Windows audio files with DRM. If they were MP3s no one would care if they shut down their crappy store.