Wal-Mart is shutting down their DRM servers, which demonstrates yet again how perverse the incentives the record labels have set up are: if you play by the rules, you get screwed. If you downloaded non-DRM'd music - legally or otherwise - you still have access. So in what possible way does DRM serve anyone's interests? It hurts consumers, and it gives vendors a black eye when the legally purchased goods can no longer be used. As Boing Boing puts it:

But don't worry, this will never ever happen to all those other DRM companies -- unlike little fly-by-night mom-and-pop operations like Wal*Mart, the DRM companies are rock-ribbed veterans of commerce and industry, sure to be here for a thousand years. So go on buying your Audible books, your iTunes DRM songs, your Zune media, your EA games... None of these companies will ever disappear, nor will the third-party DRM suppliers they use. They are as solid and permanent as Commodore, Atari, the Soviet Union, the American credit system and the Roman Empire.

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