That’s the biblical Job, not job. Really long time readers will remember my digital travails from 2002, and now it seems my fate is to face a similar situation with DRM (Digital Rights Management). I’ve written about how I can’t watch MovieLink movies on my newish laptop and how Rhapsody is throwing error messages about not being able to “authorize the track to play.” As a quick update, I still can’t watch movies, and the last I heard from the Microsoft technician, my laptop has some kind of memory issue that won’t allow his diagnostic programs to run to give him the information he needs to continue troubleshooting the problem. He pointed me to a few Microsoft Knowledgebase articles that might help me solve the memory problems I’ve never experienced personally and didn’t know I had.

For the moment, the whole thing has become more work than I’m willing to devote to trying to watch a friggin’ movie. I’ll just keep renting DVDs and recording cable movies onto my ReplayTV and then downloading them to my laptop. Chalk another one up for DRM. They’ve managed the rights so well that I can’t duplicate the movie, even if that means I can’t watch it either.

Then last week, I realized it was summer. Know how I realized it was summer? The kids were home and we ended up fighting daily over Rhapsody. Typical conversation:

[Jenny, at work, gets disconnected from Rhapsody when another user logs on; Jenny calls home]
Jenny: Kailee, are you on Rhapsody?
Kailee: No, this time it’s Brent.
Jenny: Okay, please put Brent on the phone.
[Waits]
Jenny: Brent, I’m the one at work, so I get to listen to Rhapsody.
Brent: I just wanted to listen to some Green Day.
Jenny: I understand that, but I’m listening right now. You can listen when I get home.
Brent: Come on, I just want to listen for a little while.
Jenny: I paid for it, so I’m listening to it.
Brent: You’re such a meanie.
Jenny: Yes, but I’m the meanie that’s paying for the service.
Brent: You’re still a meanie.
[Curtain]

After we kept disconnecting each other over and over, I finally just changed the password, which locked them out. I feel bad for them, though, so I decided to give Yahoo Music a try, especially since I’m sure the kids will be getting real MP3 players soon and this would let them take music with them. So Friday morning, I signed up for an account, downloaded the Yahoo Music Engine, and tried to install it on their computer.

Now, I’ve installed a lot of Windows software in my day, so I feel pretty confident in my ability to double-click on an installation file. However, when I try to install YME, I get three screens into the installer (oh the joy of accepting the license agreement over and over) before I get an error message that says, “The file c:\downloads\ could not be opened.” That happens to be the folder where the file is located, so I find it odd that the installer can’t find the folder it’s located in, let alone the file. I’ve tried rebooting the computer. I’ve tried redownloading the file. I’ve tried lighting a candle and chanting. Nothing seems to get the installer to, you know, install. The computer meets all of the system requirements and then some. So either I’m just not destined to live the happy, DRMed life the entertainment industry waxes on about, or our house is built on an ancient technology burial ground. While I readily admit there is a lot of dead technology in the basement, I’m leaning towards the former.

I tried re-downloading the file for a sixth time and putting it in a different location. Now when I run the file, I get a new error message saying, “The file c:\documents and settings\HP Authorized Custom\Desktop\ could not be opened.” This sounds suspiciously like the error messages I was getting on my laptop, about how the DRM files couldn’t find themselves in order to manage the digital rights. So I did what any poor, confused soul would do in my place – I looked for tech support help on the Yahoo Music site. None to be found for my particular problem, because this is yet another one of those things that only happens to me. So I ended up sending them a message detailing my issue.

Two days later, I received a reply that explained how to log in and download the installation file. No acknowledgment what-so-ever that the installation file was the problem. So I sent a reply, asking for help with the issue I had actually asked about. It’s already been 24 hours with no reply (yes, I know I’m getting impatient) so I don’t think I’ll have another chance to ask a question and get a response before my 7–day trial expires. You know which 7–day trial that is, right? The one where I don’t get to access the content for the 7 days!

So the kids and I have gone back to our old deal that I get Rhapsody during the day, and they get it at night until I get this issue resolved or give up on it (which I expect will be sometime tonight). We’ll see how long it lasts this time. I’m not optimistic. In the meantime, I await my day in front of Congress to tell my tale of DRM woe when the entertainment industry next tries to ram through broadcast flag-like legislation.

Oh, and I checked with Rhapsody. Unfortunately (and short-sightedly), they don’t offer family plans or even a discount for a second account. For shame.