Tuesday, December 11, 2007
BBC Publishes Attack on DRM
Posted by Chris Gohlke in "CONTENT" @ 02:00 PM
"The last few years in the history of digital content are littered with examples of Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions that have been accused of being over complex and consumer unfriendly."
Who doesn't like a good article attacking DRM. Unfortunately this article gets off to a bad start by being factually incorrect. Here is there first example they give:
"Western Digital sells a range of networked hard drives, which allows users to share files across both a local network of home computers and across the net. But the firm has now blocked remote access to 30 different types of media files, including MP3s and MP4s, to users running its Anywhere Access program. The company says it has done this as an anti-piracy effort, to prevent people from copying and sharing copyright files. But the block makes no distinction between files which are user generated, such as home movies, and paid-for, DRM-protected content.
I just finished a review of the exact product and software they are referring to. Basically it is a network file server. You can use the included software or a web interface to access the drive remotely over the internet. The article says that you can't remotely access files like MP3's due to software imposed limitation. This is not the case, I did it during my review and just did it now to see if something had changed in the last few days. In reality, the software also allows you to share access to the drive to others, basically letting you set up a file server on the web. The prohibition that is in place prevents you from sharing certain types of media files with those other users, a big difference from saying that you can't remotely access it yourself.
Who doesn't like a good article attacking DRM. Unfortunately this article gets off to a bad start by being factually incorrect. Here is there first example they give:
"Western Digital sells a range of networked hard drives, which allows users to share files across both a local network of home computers and across the net. But the firm has now blocked remote access to 30 different types of media files, including MP3s and MP4s, to users running its Anywhere Access program. The company says it has done this as an anti-piracy effort, to prevent people from copying and sharing copyright files. But the block makes no distinction between files which are user generated, such as home movies, and paid-for, DRM-protected content.
I just finished a review of the exact product and software they are referring to. Basically it is a network file server. You can use the included software or a web interface to access the drive remotely over the internet. The article says that you can't remotely access files like MP3's due to software imposed limitation. This is not the case, I did it during my review and just did it now to see if something had changed in the last few days. In reality, the software also allows you to share access to the drive to others, basically letting you set up a file server on the web. The prohibition that is in place prevents you from sharing certain types of media files with those other users, a big difference from saying that you can't remotely access it yourself.
