Prince rewards spendy fans with DRM-crippled downloads

Today in Defective By Design's 35 Days Against DRM campaign, the story of a loyal Prince fan who got kicked in the teeth by the DRM on the music Prince sold from his website: "Mike McCarty sends in his horror story of being a Prince fan, as a reminder of some of the tricks that have been pulled on music fans in this DRM age. Mike says, 'Luckily I only purchased one of MANY DRM-laden album from Prince's now defunct New Power Generation website, Xpectation. It came in the DRM-encumbered Windows Media format, but this was before I was ever aware of the horrors of DRM. Ironically, I EXPECTED the files to work pretty much forever, maybe not forever but at least a few good years. However, I guess the joke was on me as I misplaced the files on an external hard-drive a year or so ago and recently located them only to find out there's absolutely nothing I can do with them.'"

35 Days Against DRM -- Day 7: Prince: Friends without benefits. (Thanks, Peter!)

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Cory Doctorow

Jun 1, Sydney Vivid
Jul 14, London EFF Speakeasy
Jun 18, Dublin Internet Freedom
Context (essays)
With a Little Help (short stories)
For the Win (YA novel)
Makers (adult novel)

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