Some hardcore baseball fans have been left stranded on third base by Major League Baseball after it decided to change DRM systems. As a result, game footage purchased under the old DRM scheme are no longer viewable, leaving fans with unwatchable footage—and no refunds.
Diehard (and recently ecstatic) Red Sox fan Allan Wood has blogged about his bad experience with MLB's Digital Download service. In 2003, he began downloading games at $3.95 a pop and burning them to CD-R. In anticipation of the Red Sox debut of Daisuke Matsuzaka last spring, Wood decided to watch some 2006 footage of him pitching in the World Baseball Championships for Japan.
Instead of seeing Dice-K toeing the bump for the Land of the Rising Sun, Wood was told he needed to obtain a license to watch the video. He was then directed to a DRM "phone-home" page at MLB.com to verify that he was indeed licensed to watch the footage. One problem: the page was gone. Since the DRM scheme couldn't verify that he was allowed to watch the videos he had purchased, he was out of luck.
This shows how the Major Leagues are just out there to make money. They don't care about the fans wanting to watch the game. They also don't care about playing the sport for fun, or honor. The Japanese play the sport because they love to, and don't care so much about making loads of money.
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