2006, The Year of DRM, Now With Worms!
Ah the New Year. Feels nice, doesn’t it? I know mine does. And then, dria forwards this article from Boing Boing about Coldplay’s record company, Virgin Records, with a ridiculous set of rules on their new CD:
The rules explicitly prohibit the encoding of the contents to harddrive or computer. Under Windows, the autoplay feature on the disc will install some software to prevent the encoding on that platform and who knows what else?
While 2005 had no shortage of stories like these and made some companies look positively evil for the crap they were installing on people’s computers (*koff* Sony *koff*), it’s a no-brainer that 2006 will see even more of this as media companies come up with innovative new ways to screw their customers / protect their investments. Wouldn’t it be cool if Virgin Atlantic could charge you once for the DVD-A version of Coldplay’s X&Y, then again for the CD version of the same album? Then charge you a buck a track for each song on it so you could listen on your computer and MP3 player? But wait, you need a version to play in the car stereo, right? Well, don’t worry, they’ll sell you a version that can play there too, provided you have a DRM-capable car stereo installed with the correct license keys and authorizations. (*note, this car stereo doesn’t exist yet, but give it time).
Ok, enough doomsday DRM rambling for one day. I would like to point out that 2006 may also be the year of crushing Windows insecurities, first, in the form of the Windows WMF vulnerability. As people are going back to work this week and turning on their computers, they may be in for a big surprise when they open their inbox, connect to AIM/MSN and/or open their web-browser to any old infected page. The Internet Storm Center has a fix that they are recommending everyone installs. For the good of the internet.
oh yeah, Microsoft says they’ll have a patch ready around January 9th. Meanwhile, a number of internet advertising companies are shipping infected ad banners. You may want to just stay home until Microsoft gets their shit together (but don’t turn on your PC!).
So yeah, it should be a fun week. Also, Happy New Year!
boolean is listening to: Forgiveness from the album “Engineers” by Engineers
Technorati Tags: Computing, DRM, Entertainment, Music, Windows
2 Comments
Trey Anastasio’s Shine has the same copy protection built into it as well. I’m still a bit baffled by the whole DRM push. These copy protection schemes only stop the least knowledgable users from copying the files to their computers. Anyone with a bit of knowledge knows how to circumvent and then the torrent/peer-to-peer community has the content, and is even more motivated to pass it around as a way to get back at label for putting copy protection on in the first place.
Posted by Boondoggler on 7 January 2006 @ 3pm
Yeah, it sucks. Media companies are desperately trying to cram technology down the throats of their customers that nobody actually wants or needs. Most consumers are willing to go to some lengths to circumvent the technology causing an arm’s race that the companies can’t win. So it costs the companies more money than they can make from producing this cutting further into their bottom line. Of course, if any media companies would like to pay me to consult with them on how to provide a better service for their customers, they can feel free to contact me.
Posted by boolean on 8 January 2006 @ 1am