I am annoyed.

Very annoyed.

I'm on a pretty tight budget. I try to buy CDs only on sale, I buy used LPs, and when I want only one song off an album and can't get my hands on an album loan from the public library, I download a file.

90% of the time I have bought my downloads from Wal-Mart, the other 10% I get from (ahem) very generous people. In the past, that number was reversed, but thanks to the RIAA and their Goon Squad, they've rather put the fear of God into me.

So.

I heard a song the other night, and found out it was "Revival" by the group Soulsavers. So off to Wal-Mart music downloads I go, and instead of their massive collection of DRM'd .wma files (which I got around anyway by burning them to a CD in .wav form), I find that as of 18 February 2008, all their music is now only in non-DRM'd .mp3 format.

You'd think that's a good thing. It isn't. Not when the selection of music has been drastically cut back because there's no DRM and the record labels don't like it.

Just for laughs, I put in artist names that usually brought up hundreds of hits. The Beatles. Madonna. The Doors. Shakira. ELO.

The results were incredibly disappointing.

22 songs and interviews by The Beatles.
10 songs by Madonna.
Zero by The Doors.
Zero by Shakira.
One by ELO.

Try it yourself: Wal-Mart music download home page

And just today, I had read a story that Wal-Mart was the number one music seller online, and that iTunes was number two. Obviously, this story was written before Wal-Mart threw in the towel and ceded any possible lead to iTunes.

So now, I have to look into getting a gift card for Amazon.com music .mp3 downloads. This will be a bit tricky, as I don't have a credit card to pay for it.

Oh, and I got the Soulsavers song thanks to LimeWire, and no thanks to Wal-Mart.

I don't get it. The music industry is screaming about people not buying music. Yet when I want to do so, and was perfectly happy with the way Wal-Mart was running their downloads, they change it and make it impossible to find the music I want. It's as if everyone wants to complain about lousy music sales, and then they deliberately make it difficult to buy! What the hell are these people smoking?

I'll be happy to pay for music I want. JUST LET ME BUY IT!

[/rant]

I'm laughing my wife works for the co. that sells all of walmart. She goes in and restocks the cds. Maybe wants to make a larger profit.

Typical of Wal-Mart, here they ran one of our larger sporting goods stores out of business by selling cheaper, now that they are gone they are discontinuing a lot of the items.

Jim

you should be mad at the RIAA, not Wal Mart. I don't think Wal Mart had really much of a choice in this matter

Whether its the music or whatever, I hate walmart, doesnt matter to me. the evil empire, kinda like microsoft. just my opinion. well and the RIAA too.

elroy

I'm annoyed at both the RIAA and Wal-Mart.

I'm annoyed at the RIAA for trying to continually get blood from a stone.

I'm annoyed at Wal-Mart for no longer selling what I was perfectly happy to buy.

Hell, even if Wal-Mart sold .mp3s with DRM that'd be fine as long as I can burn 'em to a CD. They raised the price from 89 cents for a DRM'd .wma to 99 cents for a non-DRM'd .mp3. I'm ready to buy. So why won't they sell them to me? Is the cost of adding DRM that high so that it cuts into their profits enough to force them to not sell the music I want? Cheapskates.

:growls: