Why I Hate DRM.
We figured with the release of the new Wallace & Gromit animation that it would be nice to queue up the Wallace & Gromit’s Cracking Contraptions cartoons for the boys on our new machine w/output to the TV…. unfortunately, the website to access and install the DRM licence appears to be no longer in service. After further digging around and emailing AtomFilms this was their response:
“Hello,
Once the Wallace & Gromit’s Cracking Contraptions license is installed, you may watch the films indefinitely on the computer on which the license is installed. However, if you never installed the license, or if you change computers, or if you reinstall the operating system on the computer on which the license is installed, or if for any other reason you require the license reinstalled, the license can not be reinstalled after June 30, 2003. This license restriction was part of the contractual agreement that we had with the Wallace & Gromit’s Cracking Contraptions film series creators, and we have no legal way of working around the restriction.
The license you purchased was a temporary license. The details of the temporary license, such as deadlines for installing licenses and downloading the episodes, were clearly communicated on our Wallace and Gromit help pages, and directly communicated via the registration e-mail that was sent to you at atomfilms@williamcherry.com on 12/10/2002.
Regards, AtomShockwave Customer Support”
Wow, so how am I supposed to remember that the license expired… and I’m pretty sure I don’t have that email hanging around somewhere notifying me that it did expire… So basically, if you purchase video with DRM you must never upgrade your computer or the Media Player software, have a computer hard drive crash, upgrade your Operating System or decide to buy a new machine and have the movies moved over for viewing on your brand new computer and plasma screen – go figure… I wonder if I can just move the hard drive over from the old machine to the new machine (assuming they still even work on the old machine). I was pretty sure it was had an expiring licence – makes sense to me, considering the film series creators probably wanted the rights returned at a later time… I just wonder how many other people got hosed on this…. I guess we’ll just have to hunt around on the net and grab whatever episodes are available out there.
This post is tagged: user experience