Stephen Downes

I've covered this before, but this short article is based on the Beta release of Office 2003, and it touches on a favorite complaint of mine: the use of digital rigths management to exclude software competition. As the author explains, in order to access Word documents using Microsoft's new digital rights system, it will be necessary to use Microsoft products. "The end result is that anyone who tries to reverse engineer Microsoft's IRM for use in competing products would be in violation of the DMCA in the US."