Comment Digital Rights (Score 1) 586
The party line is that MS/Real are doing this for increased protection of digital media from unscrupulous music pirates (they'd never push their own formats for *personal* gain, would they?). So what's being gained is increased protection for the owners of the material.
And I'm sure that'll last a good two minutes before someone writes a little util (or a one-line perl script) to blow the copy protection away, and we're right back where we started except for the fact that we're all using a closed format instead of a more open one.
I'm sure the MPEG group wants to reward their members with royalties up the wazoo for the hard work they've all put in, but pragmatics has to kick in sometime; how long can they compete with companies that have the monetary and programming resources to flood the market with their own goodies free of charge?
And I'm sure that'll last a good two minutes before someone writes a little util (or a one-line perl script) to blow the copy protection away, and we're right back where we started except for the fact that we're all using a closed format instead of a more open one.
I'm sure the MPEG group wants to reward their members with royalties up the wazoo for the hard work they've all put in, but pragmatics has to kick in sometime; how long can they compete with companies that have the monetary and programming resources to flood the market with their own goodies free of charge?
