November 16th, 2011
Owning your music, your games … and your relationship
Yesterday I prepared my Nintendo Wii, which I never use anymore, for sale on Craigslist. I had to wipe it first, and for the first time, felt the sting of “digital rights management”. Obviously, I can’t give my Wii to someone else with my passwords and shopping account still on it, so I needed to remove those.
The only way Nintendo would let me do that was to completely nuke my account. Everything I’ve bought, my unused balance, my saved game files, everything … gone. My history and relationship with Nintendo as a Wii customer (and I’ve been a customer for many years and consoles) is completely erased.
I’m honestly shocked Nintendo would toss a customer relationship away so easily. Every console sold from now on will be connected to the Internet and will include an online shop. Customer accounts, history and purchases should always be retained unless the customer explicitly asks otherwise.
The RIAA is claiming that you don’t own your digital music, in order to squelch a new service designed to create a market for “used mp3s”. Since I always buy unencrypted mp3s, I never gave this much thought. But today, I was summarily stripped of my games, my gameplay and account history, and even my account balance, simply because I wanted to sell a collection of metal and plastic hardware.
I wasn’t breaking up with you, Nintendo. I just needed to take a break.
But now, I need you to know that we are done. I won’t be coming back. I can’t trust you to treat me like a person.