Have you read your music stores EULA for DRMed content?

I came across an article about buymusic.com. I decided to check out what they were talking about in the terms of service. I found it humorous that the terms of service that you have to agree to is in a window 3 lines high with a scrollbar. After reading it this way for a few minutes, I avoided a headache and cut/paste into an editor. There, all 4,343 words plain to see. To make matters worse, it linked to a privacy policy that, thankfully opened in a new browser window but itself was 15 pages long (depending on your monitor/browser window size). In addition, it linked to a 5 page marketplace buyers agreement.

Has any customer of buymusic.com actually signed up after wading through ALL OF THAT? Now to be fair, many other online music services were not much better, but none that I saw had the reader wade through 4343 words in a window 3 lines high with a scrollbar.

I am not going to bore you with all the detailed analysis of EULA's, but I am going to point out exactly where I got to when I decided (if I used Windows/Apple and actually wanted to purchase the inferior quality music they were offering) this is a service that I will NEVER use and could never recommend to anyone. Again, these are not all the things just fundamentally wrong with the EULA, this is the FIRST thing I found wrong.

BuyMusic.com
"Buy.com reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to change, add or remove portions of this Terms of Use, at any time. It is your responsibility to check this Terms of Use each time before using the Site. "

Is this legal? Can I agree to something, then be forced to unwittingly agree to new terms without ANY kind of notification. Not even a banner on the login page saying "See new terms of use changes"?

Napster.com
"To access the Service, you will need to install or activate Napster's proprietary software application; from time to time, you may also be required to install other software made available through the Service (collectively this software is called the "Client"). You may also need to install certain third-party software. You are responsible for any hardware, systems and/or software program(s) you use and any associated fees and expenses (a) to connect to or use the Internet, and/or (b) other than the Client, to use any Materials."

So to use your service, you can force me to upgrade to Vista, or purchase XYZ, or force the install of any third party application. If the RIAA decides to force a mandatory $50 tax on your DRM infected proprietary application...not even worth finishing. See ya.

MSN Music.com
Kind of an aside, I couldn't be bothered to user the user agent switcher to tell MSN that I was not using Firefox on Linux, and the system requirements page came up telling me to use XP, etc, so that was a non starter.

AOL Music Now
"Because the companies that provide the Entertainment Content to us may have different rules concerning how their content may be used, your ability to transfer or make copies ("burns") of Purchased Downloads may vary, depending on the rights that the respective companies' controlling rights in the Purchased Downloads have granted to us. Presently, Purchased Downloads may be transferred only to compatible portable digital devices supporting the Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) platform."

OK, so ONLY Windows flawless DRM allowed, no Audio CDs can be created (does anyone listen to CDs in their vehicle?). Thanks for coming out.

Several services that I sampled appear to require the creation of an account before you can see if you agree to the terms of service, yahoo music as an example.

People, do you KNOW WHAT YOU AGREED TO? More to the point, how did it come to be that the unprecedented loss of freedom, recourse, notification, and draconian restrictions became the norm? Somehow, it has become the seller who DECIDES what you can have instead of the CONSUMER purchasing what they want.

Let me be clear on this. The RIAA/MPAA needs us, we DO NOT NEED THEM. If they ceased to exist, movies and music (perhaps better once the hype engine is disabled) would continue to me made, and a consumer would get a quality product at a reasonable price.

If every customer simply said, no, I refuse to purchase ANY DRMed content (CDs or online), when the RIAA/MPAA woke up and realized "wait a minute, they DON'T need us", you would find DRM free content flying into online stores. Will it ever happen, eventually. Over time, those affected by DRM's inherent flaws are coming to grips with lost content, unread EULA's, zero recourse, etc. The market is large, but in general, you can only fool people once.

In any case, if you subscribe to online content, have YOU read what you agreed to?

TripleII