Microsoft handed plenty of ammunition to the anti-DRM crowd on Tuesday by announcing it would no longer furnish authorization keys for songs purchased from the defunct MSN Music service.
For anyone that bought music from MSN Music before it closed in late 2006--the service that Microsoft operated before launching Zune--August 31 will be the last day that they can move their music to different computers. After that day, Microsoft will no longer "support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased on MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers," the company said in an e-mail to former MSN Music customers.
Not only will former customers be unable to move music to different computers but they will be prevented from swapping or upgrading operating systems after Aug. 31 without risking the loss of their music libraries.
Former MSN Music customers do have a couple of options but they aren't pretty. They can either move their music to a computer they plan to own for a long time or burn MSN songs to CDs and rerip. The latter way means losing sound quality but offers way more peace of mind than the former.
The Seattle Post Intelligencer first reported the story.
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MSN Music to stop authorizing new computers for former customers
