BeerFiles is a sometimes irreverent blog concerning all things to do with IT, technology, people and the media from the point of view of a hard boiled technology journalist and commentator. Stan has been in the IT game for about a quarter of a century. He has seen and written about the rise and fall of more than a few IT players and made many friends, some of whom he has even crossed swords with on occasions. Everything in this blog is purely Stan’s opinion so if you agree, wish to expand upon, correct a post or tell Stan he’s a clueless know nothing, please feel free.

Microsoft versus FairUse4WM test case for DRM

by Stan Beer

Thursday, 28 September 2006

Page 2 of 2 If a user has downloaded a few hundred iTunes tracks at a cost of hundreds of dollars and decides that he wants to swap his ageing iPod for an iRiver, a Creative Zen or a Sandisk Sansa, Apple and the law as it stands says he can't. To be sure, there are ways around this but they're not legal. Featured Whitepaper 5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support The DRM laws have become so ridiculously slanted against the consumer that Microsoft is incredibly now going to introduce a second DRM for its upcoming Zune player, which will not be compatible with its own PlaysForSure. It is quite understandable that companies like Apple and Microsoft want to create and protect their markets. Apple in particular has done a lot to foster the growth of legal digital downloads. Most would agree that iTunes is a great service and the iPod is a great portable player.   However, the notion that iPod's sales and market domination depend entirely on the iTunes connection is probably invalid. Most iPod owners have hundreds if not thousands of tracks on their players. Yet sales statistics tell us that on average, each of the 60 million plus iPods in the marketplace has only 20 tracks purchased through iTunes. iTunes probably aids iPod sales more through promotion than DRM lock-in. Governments in Europe, led by France and the Scandinavian countries have now begun to dig in their heels and say enough is enough. They have targeted Apple and Microsoft is likely to be next. Limiting consumer choice is not what free enterprise is supposed to be about and that is exactly what DRM attempts to do. As for the Microsoft lawsuit against the FairUse4WM developers, the best thing the case could do is highlight the DRM issue in the public arena and motivate lawmakers to rethink current laws and make FairUse4WM redundant.{moscomment} Tags See All Tags Apple  Microsoft  Music  iPod  Powered By Joomla Tags Please enable JavaScript in your browser to post your comment! << First page <   1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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