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Wal-Mart launched its DRM-free music section on August 21, 2007, selling 256 Kbps MP3s for 94 cents per track and $9.22 per album. The new files could play on devices including iPods, iPhones and Zunes, unlike the store’s earlier copy-protected WMA downloads, which relied on authentication.
What Wal-Mart launched in August 2007
The new section offered hundreds of thousands of tracks, including music from Universal and EMI’s full catalog, according to WIRED’s report at the time. Wal-Mart’s announcement described the files as MP3s encoded at 256 Kbps and said they would play on devices such as the iPod, iPhone and Zune.
Wal-Mart executive Kevin Swint framed the change as a matter of flexibility: customers could play the tracks on virtually any device. In practical terms, removing digital rights management (DRM) meant the MP3s did not require the store’s authentication system to authorize playback.
What the downloads cost
| Offer at launch | Price | Source and qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Single track | $0.94 | Wal-Mart’s August 21, 2007 launch pricing, reported by WIRED. |
| Album | $9.22 | Price listed in Wal-Mart’s reproduced launch announcement in WIRED. |
The announcement also included promotional album prices; the cited report does not specify their amounts. These are historical launch prices, not current Wal-Mart offers.
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How DRM-free MP3s differed from Wal-Mart’s earlier music
Wal-Mart began selling downloadable music in late 2003 as Windows Media 9 WMA files protected by DRM, according to the Library of Congress account of Wal-Mart’s Music Store. In August 2007, it started selling DRM-free MP3s alongside those protected WMA tracks. Roughly six months later, the store had completed its move to DRM-free music.
| Feature | Protected WMA downloads | DRM-free MP3 launch offer |
|---|---|---|
| Format and playback | Windows Media 9 WMA with DRM; playback depended on authentication infrastructure, according to the Library of Congress. | MP3 without DRM; Wal-Mart said the files could play on devices including iPod, iPhone and Zune, as reported by WIRED. |
| Audio encoding | Bitrate not stated in the Library of Congress account. | 256 Kbps, according to WIRED’s account of the launch. |
| Launch price | Not stated in the Library of Congress account. | $0.94 per track and $9.22 per album, in Wal-Mart’s August 21, 2007 launch offer reported by WIRED. |
| Catalog and availability | Not stated in the Library of Congress account. | Hundreds of thousands of tracks, including Universal music and EMI’s full catalog, according to WIRED. |
| Access durability | Playback could be affected by the status of authentication servers, as the 2008 episode demonstrated; see the Library of Congress account. | No DRM authentication was required for these MP3s, based on the format described at launch by WIRED. |
Why Wal-Mart told customers to back up older purchases
In late September 2008, Wal-Mart told customers it planned to shut down its DRM servers on October 9 and recommended burning protected tracks to CD so they could continue to use them. The announcement raised a practical risk: tracks dependent on server authentication could become harder to access if that infrastructure disappeared.
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After customers complained, Wal-Mart announced on October 10 that it would keep the servers running indefinitely, while continuing to recommend CD backups, according to the Library of Congress account. TechCrunch’s report also covered the planned shutdown as part of Wal-Mart’s transition to a fully DRM-free store.
A CD backup was the documented preservation advice for those older protected files; it did not restore access to the discontinued download store. The historical accounts do not establish the current status of Wal-Mart’s music servers or any present-day download service.
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