Wal-Mart Closes Down DRM Operations, Makes Music Unplayable

People who bought music from the Wal-Mart digital music store prior to February 2008 will soon be unable to access their music, thanks to the company's dismantling of its out-of-use DRM technology. "If you have purchased protected WMA music files from our site prior to Feb 2008, we strongly recommend that you back up your songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD. By backing up your songs, you will be able to access them from any personal computer," the company said in a statement. "This change does not impact songs or albums purchased after Feb 2008, as those are DRM-free." This makes sense to us and the majority of digital music-buying population, as DRM is bad and Wal-Mart is doing away with it, but tell that to anybody who invested in Wal-Mart's vast download store. No word yet whether Wal-Mart will allow consumers to replenish their digital music libraries with the DRM-free MP3s rather than forcing them to degrade in quality.

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Song Stories

“Tonight's the Night”

The Shirelles | 1960

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."

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