Friday, November 4, 2005
The "M" In DRM Clearly Stands For Madness
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THOUGHT" @ 02:00 PM
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2083&tag=nl.e540
"Sooner or later, it was bound to happen — a Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) management technology that, by design, often keeps you from consuming that content on devices that use other DRM technologies actually ends up keeping you from consuming content that's protected by it as well. Talk about a trainwreck. Actually, in this case, we have two trainwrecks in one — trainwrecks that perfectly demonstrate how proprietary DRM technologies are going to turn the frictionless utopia we should be after into a friction-laden migraine headache."
Microsoft released an update for their Media Center platform that can wreak havoc with your content if you do something stupid, like change the processor, hard drive or something insanely foolhardy like alter a BIOS setting. 8O Microsoft has rreleased a simple 5 step process to fix this issue. Well, they used 5 numbers in counting the steps. It looks more like 20+ steps when you include the notes and the fact that step 4 (or step eleventeen, depending on how you count) takes you to a friendly "Upgrading your Windows Media DRM Component" wizard that will no doubt take you through the "Windows Genuine Advantage" screens too. So, call it 50 steps. Can you imagine going through this hassle? The more DRM I see, the better my DRM hacking kung fu is getting.
"Sooner or later, it was bound to happen — a Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) management technology that, by design, often keeps you from consuming that content on devices that use other DRM technologies actually ends up keeping you from consuming content that's protected by it as well. Talk about a trainwreck. Actually, in this case, we have two trainwrecks in one — trainwrecks that perfectly demonstrate how proprietary DRM technologies are going to turn the frictionless utopia we should be after into a friction-laden migraine headache."
Microsoft released an update for their Media Center platform that can wreak havoc with your content if you do something stupid, like change the processor, hard drive or something insanely foolhardy like alter a BIOS setting. 8O Microsoft has rreleased a simple 5 step process to fix this issue. Well, they used 5 numbers in counting the steps. It looks more like 20+ steps when you include the notes and the fact that step 4 (or step eleventeen, depending on how you count) takes you to a friendly "Upgrading your Windows Media DRM Component" wizard that will no doubt take you through the "Windows Genuine Advantage" screens too. So, call it 50 steps. Can you imagine going through this hassle? The more DRM I see, the better my DRM hacking kung fu is getting.
