Re:But You Can't Totally Blame M$ For This..... (Score 2, Interesting)

Thing is, if neither Microsoft nor Apple had gone the DRM route, they would still get on board, because the alternative is to get NO money from people downloading with their media online.

No... the alternative is that we don't get Itunes. The media consortiums don't have to give out licenses at all. It's their explicite right to deny them in fact. So if Itunes didn't have DRM, and if Vista wasn't a DRM based OS, neither would be able to use "legally" purchased media, nor be allowed to sell it. Coming from working on the FRITZ project at Intel, working closely with MS and their "paladium" system I can tell you that MS and INTEL both HEAVILY support (or did at one time) putting any and all DRM into hardware and software, because both of these companies know that if they don't, they are going to get left in the cold by the Media. And both companies are terrified by what that means. (a lack of income to them, to be exact) Disney and several other major studios have been working with intel and MS for about 5 years now, to develop, market and tie in all the possible media they can sell. Of course, only if it's heavily laden with DRM. Nevermind if the DRM actually works, they have settled for the "it works because we can sue under DMCA if they crack it". If it were up to the studios, your computer wouldn't run code. It would run only "protected", "signed" and "verified" software and media. Be glad intel got cold feet and scaled back FRITZ.