I think I will declare today (April 23rd, 2008) as the day of SUCKERS….hehehe. This is fantastic and continues to show how damaging proprietory technologies are to your life. If the Sony ATRAC debacle didn’t serve as a warning there’s always this: Microsoft just announced that it will no longer supply authorization keys for songs purchased from the defunct MSN Music service. According to the News Desk over at Ars Technica:
Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft’s now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it’s done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer.
MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”