There are much more brilliant/qualified people who would
disagree with Paul Smith, who's an MVP by the way.
Ed Bott, Peter Gutmann, Bruce Schneier, to name
a few, have serious reservations about DRM and
particularly the DRM built into Vista. Those three
are highly respected. Much more so than myself or
an MVP named Paul Smith.
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0702.html#8
DRM in Windows Vista
Bruce Schneier
Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want. These features will make
your computer less reliable and less secure. They'll make your computer less stable and run
slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some
of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won't do anything useful.
In fact, they're working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM) features built
into Vista at the behest of the entertainment industry.
And you don't get to refuse them.
The details are pretty geeky, but basically Microsoft has reworked a lot of the core operating
system to add copy protection technology for new media formats like HD DVD and Blu-ray disks.
Certain high-quality output paths -- audio and video -- are reserved for protected peripheral
devices. Sometimes output quality is artificially degraded; sometimes output is prevented
entirely. And Vista continuously spends CPU time monitoring itself, trying to figure out if
you're doing something that it thinks you shouldn't. If it does, it limits functionality and in
extreme cases restarts just the video subsystem. We still don't know the exact details of all
this, and how far-reaching it is, but it doesn't look good.
Microsoft put all those functionality-crippling features into Vista because it wants to own the
entertainment industry. This isn't how Microsoft spins it, of course. It maintains that it has
no choice, that it's Hollywood that is demanding DRM in Windows in order to allow "premium
content"--meaning, new movies that are still earning revenue--onto your computer. If Microsoft
didn't play along, it'd be relegated to second-class status as Hollywood pulled its support for
the platform.
It's all complete nonsense. Microsoft could have easily told the entertainment industry that it
was not going to deliberately cripple its operating system, take it or leave it. With 95% of
the operating system market, where else would Hollywood go? Sure, Big Media has been pushing
DRM, but recently some -- Sony after their 2005 debacle and now EMI Group -- are having second
thoughts.
What the entertainment companies are finally realizing is that DRM doesn't work, and just
annoys their customers. Like every other DRM system ever invented, Microsoft's won't keep the
professional pirates from making copies of whatever they want. The DRM security in Vista was
broken the day it was released. Sure, Microsoft will patch it, but the patched system will get
broken as well. It's an arms race, and the defenders can't possibly win.
I believe that Microsoft knows this and also knows that it doesn't matter. This isn't about
stopping pirates and the small percentage of people who download free movies from the Internet.
This isn't even about Microsoft satisfying its Hollywood customers at the expense of those of
us paying for the privilege of using Vista. This is about the overwhelming majority of honest
users and who owns the distribution channels to them. And while it may have started as a
partnership, in the end Microsoft is going to end up locking the movie companies into selling
content in its proprietary formats.
We saw this trick before; Apple pulled it on the recording industry. First iTunes worked in
partnership with the major record labels to distribute content, but soon Warner Music's CEO
Edgar Bronfman Jr. found that he wasn't able to dictate a pricing model to Steve Jobs. The same
thing will happen here; after Vista is firmly entrenched in the marketplace, Sony's Howard
Stringer won't be able to dictate pricing or terms to Bill Gates. This is a war for
21st-century movie distribution and, when the dust settles, Hollywood won't know what hit them.
To be fair, just last week Steve Jobs publicly came out against DRM for music. It's a
reasonable business position, now that Apple controls the online music distribution market. But
Jobs never mentioned movies, and he is the largest single shareholder in Disney. Talk is cheap.
The real question is would he actually allow iTunes Music Store purchases to play on Microsoft
or Sony players, or is this just a clever way of deflecting blame to the--already hated--music
labels.
Microsoft is reaching for a much bigger prize than Apple: not just Hollywood, but also
peripheral hardware vendors. Vista's DRM will require driver developers to comply with all
kinds of rules and be certified; otherwise, they won't work. And Microsoft talks about
expanding this to independent software vendors as well. It's another war for control of the
computer market.
Unfortunately, we users are caught in the crossfire. We are not only stuck with DRM systems
that interfere with our legitimate fair-use rights for the content we buy, we're stuck with DRM
systems that interfere with all of our computer use--even the uses that have nothing to do with
copyright.
I don't see the market righting this wrong, because Microsoft's monopoly position gives it much
more power than we consumers can hope to have. It might not be as obvious as Microsoft using
its operating system monopoly to kill Netscape and own the browser market, but it's really no
different. Microsoft's entertainment market grab might further entrench its monopoly position,
but it will cause serious damage to both the computer and entertainment industries. DRM is bad,
both for consumers and for the entertainment industry: something the entertainment industry is
just starting to realize, but Microsoft is still fighting. Some researchers think that this is
the final straw that will drive Windows users to the competition, but I think the courts are
necessary.
In the meantime, the only advice I can offer you is to not upgrade to Vista. It will be hard.
Microsoft's bundling deals with computer manufacturers mean that it will be increasingly hard
not to get the new operating system with new computers. And Microsoft has some pretty deep
pockets and can wait us all out if it wants to. Yes, some people will shift to Macintosh and
some fewer number to Linux, but most of us are stuck on Windows. Still, if enough customers say
no to Vista, the company might actually listen.
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/...
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37091
http://www.miraesoft.com/karel/2007/01/23/...
Sony debacle:
http://www.schneier.com/essay-094.html
EMI:
http://www.forbes.com/home/digitalentertainment/...
Schneier on DRM:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0105.html#3
Vista DRM hacked:
http://www.theregister.com/2007/01/31/vista_drm_hacked/
Steve Jobs on DRM:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
This essay originally appeared on Forbes.com.
http://www.forbes.com/security/2007/02/10/...
