Microsoft Research DRM Talk
Cory Doctorow,
Jun 18, 2004
True story: while I was in Saskatoon, knowing that Air Canada shows movies only on flights longer than 3 and a half hours, and facing a three hour and 22 minute flight, I bought a copy of Gangs of New York and set it up to play on my computer. I test-played it for a couple of minutes, packed my computer, and caught my flight. After the take-off, I unpakced my computer and went to watch my movie. I put the DVD into the player, fired it up, and... it wouldn't play. The key (whatever that is) didn't match. Maybe I had to be online, maybe I was only allowed to play it once - who knows? The lesson for me is simple: don't buy DVDs.
CRLFThis talk pretty much lays out the case for Microsoft (and anyone else who will listen). It is basically a sustained attack on the concept of digital rights management (that is, content encryption and security). DRM doesn't work, argues Doctorow, and in the process of not working it causes a lot of damage, not the least of which will be suffered by Microsoft itself. "There is no market demand for this 'feature.' None of your customers want you to make expensive modifications to your products that make backing up and restoring even harder." Heck, forget backing up. I just wanted to play my movie.
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