DRM and music downloads

I rather like the MP3 store at Amazon, and I have used the Music store from walmart.com in the past yet there are some things to take into consideration when using them.  When I used the Wal-mart store, the songs I downloaded were in protected .wma files, which prevented me from using them to their fullest.  However, now the store has switched over to MP3 only.  I recently received an E-mail about the DRM in my files not being available anymore, then another saying that because of demand, they were going to support it.  Unfortunatly for me, I no longer have these files (two songs).  When I checked the Wal-Mart faq on the subject, it stated that songs were only available for re-download for 90 days after the purchase.  This includes the songs I downloaded 3-4 years ago, and the new MP3’s which are available.  Seeing how I liked the MP3 store at Amazon, I was hopeful that they might have a better policy than 90 days.  When I went to their site, they stated that you could download the songs once, taking broken downloads into consideration.

So it seems that Wal-Mart has a better re-downloading policy, but another unfortunate downpoint to Wal-Mart’s site, is that it only seems to work with Internet Explorer (to their credit, they did state on the site that they were working on Firefox compatibility).

I suppose for a full review, I’ll have to download one of the ‘new’ Mp3’s  from Wal-Mart, and see if they are comparible to Amazon’s.