drm

The Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA, is infamous (or, depending on how you look at it, famous) for its prosecution of regular folk for downloading and ripping music onto personal computers. However, now it seems that the ... organization is willing to admit that their most notorious form of copy protection, DRM, is dead. DRM, or Digital Rights Management, has been used for years to protect legitimate artists from piracy. For a long time, a band and its record company could use DRM technology to prevent the end user from passing an album or a song from computer to computer. The ... (view more)

Some users of Windows Vista Media Center have been reportedly blocked from recording some NBC Universal TV shows, receiving error messages that read "restrictions set by the broadcaster and/or originator prohibit recording of this program" instead. ... One person prevented from recording the NBC shows is an IT director in Northern California who says this is indicative of why the current Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes are flawed. DRM schemes affect people who intend to legally consume content, with no intention of stealing the content. People intent on stealing content already have ways ... (view more)

Wal-Mart's online store has undergone a major redesign that makes its massive catalogue of songs entirely DRM-free. Digital rights management (DRM) is a term used to identify restrictions placed on digital media to prevent piracy. Wal-Mart's online ... store had previously made use of the Windows Media DRM, limiting the playback of songs to devices sanctioned by Microsoft. However, the growing popularity of mobile media devices such as the iPod, which cannot play songs limited to the Windows Media DRM, has forced the retailer to carry out a complete switch-over. Wal-Mart had announced its ... (view more)

It seems Microsoft will have to take some time from preventing software piracy to reclaim the sanctity of its digital rights management (DRM) technology. Microsoft's DRM, the protective measure used to prevent hackers, or anyone for that matter, ... from using Windows Media files for purposes not condoned by the Redmond-based company, has apparently been circumvented. That's the word from hacker site Doom9.org, which recently boasted the forum post of one "Divine Tao", presenting download links to an updated version of FairUse4WM. The program effectively rips Microsoft's DRM from said Windows ... (view more)

Media Rights Technology (MRT) has sent cease-and-desist letters to Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and Real, claiming that they have been infringing products under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. "Together these four companies are responsible for 98 ... percent of the media players in the marketplace; CNN, NPR, Clear Channel, MySpace, Yahoo, and YouTube all use these infringing devices to distribute copyrighted works," said MRT CEO Hank Risan. "We will hold the responsible parties accountable. The time of suing John Doe is over." (Source: arstechnica.com ) But MRT is not a content owner, so why is ... (view more)

Digital Rights Management (DRM) has been gaining some negative attention, especially with Apple's Steve Jobs pushing towards a DRM-free music industry. Sony seems to have magnified people's annoyance with DRM, and taken frustrations to a whole new ... level. The company recently released DVDs with DRM protection that makes the DVDs unplayable in various DVD players -- including at least one Sony DVD player. (Source: dvorak.com ) The aggravation can be attributed to Sony's ARccOS DRM technique. ARccOS works by scrambling sectors on the disc to prevent users from copying the disc. Most older ... (view more)

Being fair minded while discussing Microsoft is difficult for me considering all the illegal activities their management has engaged in, and have been convicted for, in both U.S. and International Courts over the years. But, I do try hard to be as ... open-minded as I possibly can when talking about their software. With that in mind, I wanted to talk to you about Vista and all the hype that has been blowing around in the wind. It is confusing, conflicting, and in some cases, just too hard to believe! Let me begin. On one hand, you hear Microsoft touting the virtues of Vista as the Best OS since ... (view more)

On May 23, 2006, Bill Gates was giving his speech on the future of Microsoft, when protesters wearing bright yellow Hazmat suits swarmed the entrance of a convention center. Their message to the software developer was, "your product is defective and ... hazardous to users." (Source: www.fsf.org ) The surprise protest marked the launch of DefectiveByDesign.org, a direct-action campaign that will target Big Media and corporations that market Digital Rights Management (DRM). DefectiveByDesign.org is a broad-based, anti-DRM campaign that is targeting Big Media, unhelpful manufacturers, and ... (view more)