A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. I’ve been considering a new laptop once Microsoft finally ships Vista and Sony et al start bundling it, but reading things like this seriously makes me reconsider. (I’m a big fan of the TX series.) I’d love to read a differing viewpoint. Hat tip: Simon.
Wow – that is insane. What kind of an end user would tolerate this garbage? Makes me think OS X might be a better option if you want to move on from XP. I wonder if Apple would ever consider selling it, especially if MS does not change any of these drm-related Vista issues. It would be a strange world where Apple is the pc maker of choice and MS is a videogame company.
After reading that report, I’ll never buy Vista. If MS has their way our computers will only run media content and hardware they explicitly allow. That gives them a really big unfair advantage over competing operating systems… I’m just wondering how long until Microsoft gets slammed with another monopoly law suit.
This is one of the many reasons I use Linux.
As a software developer, I’ve been paying close attention to Vista and all the requirements to make most of my code function. After several Alpha and Beta releases, countless hours of documentation study and seemingly endless software testing, I’ve deceided to stick with XP when working in Windows.
Vista has some great features and a pretty thorough security method as well as some great features that will really be useful in an enterprise setting, however, I do not believe this is an OS that will find wide acceptance with the general population. Despite all the hard work and sacrifice Microsoft’s engineers have put into Vista, this OS will likely become another “Windows ME”.
As a gamer I tweak my machine quite a bit. And the limits on hardware changes, the inability to legally run benchmarks, the hit that gamers see in their games because Microsoft can’t shut down the amount of resources it gives to the OS from DirectX when a game is being played. And should I even continue. It’s a no go. I have one more XP license for a new machine and it looks like I need to put another XP Pro bulk license order in. Because I’m not going Vista.
pfffff only mac.
Be sure to see the followup.
Cost analysis of Vista DRM: Part II
,—-[ Quote ]
| Microsoft doesn’t merely use DRM. To all intents and purposes it
| is DRM, better known as Digital Rights Management, Digital
| Restrictions Management or or just plain CRAP for Content
| Restriction, Annulment, and Protection, as ZDNet’s David
| Berlind called it, eventually deferring to Richard Stallman’s
| Cancellation, Restriction, and Punishment. We call it, simply,
| CCG, short for Consumer Control Gear.
`—-
http://p2pnet.net/story/10827
Not that I’m a big fan of the actions that Microsoft has taken with their own product activation and the like, but I wouldn’t be so quick to crucify Microsoft over DRM…
Keep in mind that the MPAA and RIAA have mandated a significant amount of the restrictions that Microsoft implemented in Vista. If Microsoft didn’t then the Zune store and the likes that Microsoft resells digital media from could have been cut off by the MPAA and RIAA.
Bill Gates has publically made comments that he doesn’t agree with the DRM restrictions being imposed by the MPAA and RIAA (see CNet’s Buzz Out Loud from Dec 12 or 13 I believe).
That’s not to say that Vista is a decent OS or DRM is great, however direct your ire over the DRM implementation in Vista at the right groups, the MPAA and RIAA and not Microsoft. The fact is that the MPAA and RIAA had Microsoft over a barrel and they didn’t have much of a choice.
Apple seems to be ok for now with the current DRM schemes in place through iTunes, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the MPAA and RIAA started making demands that Apple beefed up their own DRM implementation.
excuse me? the mpaa has mandated this kind of drm?
and you think microsoft, the posterboy for power, bullying and cash couldn’t have opposed it? they didn’t even try to oppose, because it’s the same way of thinking like their new “genuine advantage” and the like. remember “palladium”?
i’ll switch to linux or os X when my xp installations hit support end of life.
How does such ridiculous DRM on digital media benefit Microsoft? Unlike their efforts with their OS and Office Suites, all that lumping DRM into the OS for media files does is add to their development costs and to the complexity of the OS that they’re trying to build… Microsoft’s copy protection schemes may be irritating and bug riddled, but they’re an attempt by Microsoft to protect their property…
Why try and protect content that doesn’t bring you any value and doesn’t add to your bottom line? Don’t kid yourself, the RIAA and MPAA are behind every single one of the idiotic DRM schemes that have been foisted upon us in the last several years. What they haven’t forced the technology companies to implement, the technology companies have implemented in an attempt to avoid the ire of the RIAA and MPAA…
Linux has been immune so far because few if any companies are trying to sell digital media to Linux users… If that happens, then you can expect to see the same overly restrictive DRM slapped onto media files headed to Linux users…
If you truely want such draconian DRM schemes to go away, then this issue needs to head out of the geek realm and into the mainstream… Until that happens, nothing will change…
Amazing also the restrictions that Vista is putting on High Definition Content
“In their specs, Microsoft regard anything with more than 520K pixels or 800 x 600 resolution as premium content that needs to be downgraded before displaying it to the user.”
So, if you have a more recent camera on your mobile phone, that will already produce premium content?
A question, Umm
Who does RIAA & MPAA think they are? They do not have the authority to “mandate” anything. Laws are made by the courts in the USA or a “law maker” (those elected clowns who make laws if paid off by lobby groups)Microsoft must have decided to comply or been co-erced… I havn’t seen any court ruling saying microsoft has a duty to comply with DRM requests. (Or to degrade video quality, or to forbid hardware changes)
Looking at what crap MSFT products are, buggy bloatware, where in the hell are the Japanese when you need them? The kicked the hell out of low quality USA automobiles… we need an alternative. Otherwise it’s an arms race, MSFT geeks vs the “hackers & crackers” of the world
Well, reading that little lot has put me off Vista for life!! No way Jose!!
Yep, DRM is a useless, damaging pipe dream of greedy corporate pigs. It makes things more expensive, less compatible, less functional, more buggy, and overall far less useful. The hackers and crackers of the world have things like this bypassed in no-time flat, and all it ends up doing is making things more difficult for the people that actually forked out their money for the products. So, what else is new? We live in a world so full of general apathy that companies continue to crank out mindless, worthless, consumer-unfriendly crap and we continue to happily lap it up with a spoon.
So, now Microsoft has added “technology” that makes content and products we have paid for work only on certain hardware in a certain software environment. They’re locking down the device we paid for and severely limiting what we can do with content and products that – for all intents and purposes – we own. At the same time they are creating a climate in which they can be platform gatekeepers to 3rd parties and rake in additional licensing revenue. Who didn’t see this coming?
Oh, and before you all bring the hammer down on MS, stop and think. This isn’t a new idea. There is another corporate giant that is every bit as evil as MS…in fact, they’re almost MORE evil because of the way they spin their image, and they’ve been using this business model for years. For some crazy reason their followers positively love them for it. Yes, I’m talking about Apple. It’s endlessly entertaining to me the way Apple evangelists (not Apple users, I have no problem with them) are so smug when they read things like this about MS. Have they really consumed so much of the Apple “kool-aid” that they can’t see that their beloved Jobs has been doing this to them from the get-go? Hardware and software lockdown? Non portable DRM-crippled content at inflated prices? It absolutely cracks me up.
Honestly, going open source is the only way to avoid this new type of business model (for now). I triple-boot XP, Vista, and Linux with KDE on top, and I find I have all my bases covered. Like it or not, I’m a software developer and Windows is a necessary evil for people that do technology work that doesn’t involve multimedia or graphics. MacOS? It’s nice enough, but a bit restrictive for my taste. If I could run it on my choice of hardware I might add a 4th OS to my main desktop, but I won’t buy a Mac machine just to run it. If I want a pretty, overpriced appliance I’ll buy myself one of those fancy new microwaves. A simple computing appliance is great for a wide range of users, but I need more flexibility and control than Apple is willing to give me.
DRM must go, but the consumers are the only ones that can/will affect change. Apathy is to blame. Corporations are money-making organisms. Why take it personally when they do what is in their nature? The onus to provide checks and balances in a capitalist system is on the consumer.