You disgust me!
What kind of an ass-kissing attitude is that? DRM is inevitable… pfffft…
A little off topic, but pertinent is my opinion on THE COSTS OF DRM - ultimately the problem of studios, artists, etc.
I don’t think Jeff would have that much complaining if he had to re-purchase his media for $20 versus $140.
It is my personal opinion that if Amazon sold albums for $5, millions of more people would legitimately purchase the albums versus sharing. Studios happy, people happy. Sounds too simple huh?
Look what Radiohead did, when people were asked to “pay what they want” for the latest album, the average price paid for album? Around $4, not a coincidence. That’s the pulse of what people deem as reasonable.
Brings me to my final thought, DRM security is more like a lockdown (As Jeff found out) since the console makers are having to police against non-purchased copies, but I don’t see this as even a thought if the costs were more reasonable.
I am experiencing the same type of “Lockdown” with my Verizon phone. EVERYTHING has to be purchased through them, no exceptions. (At monopoly type rates)
Nice post, but
why did you re-buy everthing?
Stand up and say no to this bullcrap…
Jeff, Maybe you are doing things differently than I am, but I own two 360’s, an elite and a launch premium. The things you are suggesting already exist. All purchases are tied to your profile. PERIOD. They are not tied to the HD or the box. What you need to do is purchase a memory unit. Copy your profile to the unit and then you can use content anywhere you are playing using the memory unit and signed into xbox live from the memory unit. Of course you could always copy important downloads to the memory unit to go with you as well. The downside of it is to have to redownload content again (which if you are signed into live, you won’t be charged again). Once purchased your content stays yours and your profile authorizes that content to be downloaded again anytime with full rights to that content as long as you are signed in. Sorry, you blew a bunch of money.
Wait, are you saying you actually have two profiles? A work one and a home one? Besides being a huge waste of time and money that completely defeats the entire purpose of a profile, plus you’ve destroyed any ability to have bragging rights on your gamerscore since you’re splitting achievements between the two. You know, it’s the important things in life 
While having to cart your profile around is a very slight inconvenience it’s really the best way I can see to prevent rampant cheating. If it was any easier to move your profile around you’d have a huge number of people inflating their score and sharing Live accounts.
This also isn’t a DRM issue, it’s simply authorization, no different than the hardware dongles many corporations require their VPN users to use.
DRM Ignorance may be expensive, but in your case there was little ignorance involved. You understood your options (schlepp the memory card back-n-forth or pay for a second set of DRM’ed content).
You took the expensive route by choice, not by ignorance; or are you saying that if you understood all this DRM complexity up-front before you bought the xbox you wouldn’t have bought it?
Are you sure it’s per-system as well as per-account?
I got Geometry Wars - Full Game to download on a friend’s 360 after activating my Live account on his system. Ran just fine as long as my account was on his system.
Since I was only visiting, I, of course, transferred my account back to my system; killing the copy of Geometry Wars on his box.
…but, it still worked.
Of course, different downloads can have different DRM restrictions. But, if GH and RB are actually limited per-system, then that just makes their downloadable content less viable purchases IMO.
Oh, ok Jeff. This post was worthless. You spend $140 on DRM encumbered leased content for a video game, get totally f’ed over, re-buy the content, bitch about it on your blog, and then conclude that DRM is inevitable and we need to just bend over and take it. You are a spaghetti spined hypocrite.
Isn’t this a blog about programming?
There is actually a way around this: Datel’s Xbox 360 Transfer Kit allows you to copy an image of a memory card. I simply moved my profile from my hard drive to a memory card using the kit, then used the software to make an backup image of the card. Move the profile on the card back to your 360’s hard drive and then copy the image back to the memory card. Now you have a copy of your profile on the hard drive AND the memory card. You can take your memory card to work and move a copy over to that 360. Rinse and repeat as necessary, or just make a few copies of your profile on some memory cards to leave in your car, EDC bag or backpack, etc. for any situations where you might bump into a 360 and want to play.
I’ve currently got my profile on my home 360 as well as a few of my friends’ consoles, and any DLC I’ve paid for once will download to any of the consoles and run perfectly since I’m downloading it with a known gamertag. The transfer kit’s driver support is pretty clunky and it only works with the older 64 MB memory cards, but if all you are interested in is making a backup of your profile, it works well enough: http://www.amazon.com/Intec-DUS0150-I-Xbox-360-Transfer/dp/B000G02KGG/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8s=videogamesqid=1202325184sr=8-1
“I’ve purchased lots of downloadable content on the Xbox 360 at work, primarily new songs for Guitar Hero 2, Guitar Hero 3, and Rock Band.”
“in light of my Rock Band addiction”
What sort of work do you do?
Mike;)
Stand up and say no to this bullcrap…
I’m sorry, but I simply can’t say no to the pure joy that is Rock Band. Where are the free open source alternatives? (that don’t take a week to set up and configure)
Isn’t this a blog about programming?
Last time I checked, DRM is related to programming. If you look up the people responsible for enforcing DRM in code, I think you’ll find… programmers.
What sort of work do you do?
Oh, I don’t know… perhaps THIS KIND?!
Jeff said:[stuff]
I heard: “Xbox360 at work”.
Nice.
Jeff you definetely made the right choice on the 360. I thought that I could tough it out as well owning just a 360. However, the siren songs of Gran Turismo 5 and Metal Gear Solid 4 coming this year and the gimped 40gb PS3 that lacks backwards compatibility (BC) plus the spotty 80gb’s software BC convinced me otherwise, so I sprung for a 60gb last summer.
By the way can anyone explain why with software emulation on the 360 and ps3 that developers create a emulation profile for EACH AND EVERY GAME. Silly. It just makes more sense to me to make a profile that imitates the hardware(cpu, gpu, controllers, motherboard, etc) and have the games interface to the emulated hardware profile than try to create profiles for thousands of games. My 2 cents.
I’ve purchased lots of downloadable content on the Xbox 360 at work, primarily new songs for Guitar Hero 2, Guitar Hero 3, and Rock Band. I foolishly assumed all along that it would be no big deal to transfer that purchased content if I ever purchased an Xbox 360 for my home.
why did you do this ? (I don’t own any console) - but i can’t find a reason for doing this (the only possibility would be if you earned those MS points through some scheme)
Man your getting a lot of heat for this one Jeff.
I think you might have stepped out a little to far of your, comfortable programmer cubicle, this time.
DRM obviously is a very touchy subject. 
http://visitmix.com/blogs/News/437/
Firefox is sad when it visits this page.
OK on the principle of DRM but as long as it means I can’t play the music I buy wherever I want, it’s not Rights, it’s Theft.
iTunes is great. Beg your pardon? I can’t play the music I buy on my car radio? Oh! Then thanks but no, thanks.
BTW, when will Amazon MP3 be available in Europe?
I agree with Serge… If I want music I check eMusic first as I have a subscription there… if they don’t have it, I check Amazon MP3… if they don’t have it, I do without (unless I just absolutely can’t stand it then I get it from iTunes and run it through DRM free software).
DRM is not the future. Hassles like the one you describe are exactly why I don’t think it’ll succeed.
No, I don’t buy stuff off of xBox Live either. I think I have once, but it was throw away content that I only expected to see once anyway.
Why didn’t you purchase a PS3 then? You can transfer the content to another PS3 under your own account, no problem, and most accessories are free, as they’re build in!
Shoot, I meant to mention this in the body of the post-- if anyone is interested, my gamertag is “codinghorror”.
Maybe it’s tied to the harddrive?
As mentioned in the article, downloaded content is tied to 1) the Xbox Live account it was purchased under and 2) the Xbox 360 hardware itself. So if you were to return your Xbox 360 for repair and keep the hard drive, your old content will work… but only when your Xbox Live account is logged in. Prior to the hardware swap, your downloaded content would work for any account, online or not, on that Xbox 360. You’ve lost rights simply because you were unlucky enough to have your hardware go bad. Not a great arrangement.
If I want music I check eMusic first as I have a subscription there… if they don’t have it, I check Amazon MP3
I totally support Amazon MP3 DRM-free music store, I’ve bought tons of music from there. It’s great! Not sure how this relates to the Xbox 360 or iPhone ecosystems, however.