Bud Lite to Fans: Go Phokk Yourselves

MLB rips off fans who bought DRM videos

Allan Wood (a baseball megafan who has written a book about Babe Ruth) purchased over $280 worth of digital downloads of baseball games from Major League Baseball, who have just turned off their DRM server, leaving him with no way to watch his videos. MLB's position is that since these videos were "one time sales," and that means that Wood and everyone else who gave money to MLB is out of luck -- they'll never be able to watch their videos again,.
MLB shut down the DRM server because they've changed suppliers, and now they expect suckers to buy downloads of games in the new DRM format. Anyone who does this needs their head examined -- using DRM itself is contemptible enough, but using DRM this way is just plain criminal.
Just got off the phone with a MLB customer service supervisor.
"MLB no longer supports the DDS system" that it once used and so any CDs with downloaded games on them "are no good. They will not work with the current system."
Great. Just effing great. ... As I told the supervisor, this is right in line with how wrong-headed and stupid and ass backwards MLB does everything.
I was told there is absolutely nothing MLB can do about these lost games. Plus, they said my purchases were all "one-time sales" and thus "there are no refunds".

In related news:

MLB posts record revenues
Major League Baseball will finish this year with just over $6 billion in revenue, according to Bob DuPuy, MLB's president and chief operating officer.
Baseball's sales have increased 50 percent from 2004 and have doubled since 2000, CNN reported. DuPuy said that the level of growth this year had surprised even him and Commissioner Bud Selig.
“We have seen a healthy increase in every one of our revenue streams," DuPuy said. "We saw about a $0.5 billion from sources that really didn't exist 10 years ago."
DuPuy told CNN he expects revenue growth in the single digit percentage range in 2008 and an even bigger jump in revenue in 2009.

In soon-to-be-related news:

Look for across-the-board ticket and concession price hikes at every major league park in 2008...