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Microsoft Offers A DRM Patch
Transcendent writes "Microsoft Windows Update is offering a download for their 1.0 version of the 'Microsoft Windows Rights Management client,' if you care to download it. Seems that you need Win98 SE and up (or at least that's the minimum 'supported'). Details are here. Although it's not required or a 'critical' update, this just paves the road for all of Microsoft's software to require DRM technology on your computer. Quote from the details page: 'Installing this client allows RM-aware applications to work with Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) to provide licenses for publishing and consuming RM-protected information.' This, dubbed 'Activation', entails that 'your computer will be automatically connected via the Internet ... in order to create and save on your computer a system component that is associated with your hardware.' Hmmm... me no like ..."
This is probably the rights management system included in office 2003 which lets you sign and limit future use of your word docs. This is what end users of your protected documents will have to install to read them. In this case, the 'rights' that are managed are the ones YOU grant. No proplemo with that.
No, it's NOT auto-downloaded.
No it's NOT sandwiched with other patches.
Yes, you CAN uninstall it.
Ummm...this is IRM not DRM. The difference being that IRM is a rights management deal for Office documents, targeted at corporate environments. The download lets you view IRM protected documents without having Office 2003 installed, this isn't DRM, doesn't have anything to do with MPAA/RIAA, and is optional. So stop with the whining.
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
Don't you care about your rights?
Even if you don't care about your own, are you so shameless as to shout down those who do?
Here's a brief explanation of why Fair Use rights are important:
"Why does the public have a "fair use" right to use copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission?
At the doctrine's core is a fundamental belief that not all copying should be banned, particularly in socially important endeavors. The Supreme Court explained, "the fair use doctrine exists because copyright law extends limited proprietary rights to copyright owners only to the extent necessary to ensure dissemination to the public."
Copyright law serves as a regulatory scheme designed to balance the competing rights of creators to exploit their work, entrepreneurs to receive a return on their investment, and the public's interest in gaining access to works. The fair use doctrine and other public rights are designed to further the ultimate goal of disseminating knowledge to the public. In developing an information infrastructure that serves the public interest and encourages the open flow of information, it is essential to continue to balance the competing interests and preserve the public's fair use rights in an electronic environment as it has in more traditional formats."
Understanding Fair Use Rights
This discussion from microsoft shows where they are planning to go with this. It is going to be part of the Windows 2003 server line. Or you can use microsoft's own service (which uses passport) if you don't want to run your own server. And all of this does tie in to office 2003 as it looks like the first product to take full advantage of it. Talk about vendor lock in....
There are 3 RM downloads at the MS site. The first is the one in the article - the Client piece. There are also a part for the Server and SDKs for CLient and Server. The Server SDK is not available to just anyone. MS has to license you. They do this via a form of their security Certificate Server. The SDK lets 2 users connect for development work, but beyond that you need a license to code for it.
.NET, SOAP, IE 6 and IIS. This all has the feel of an end-to-end "solution" that they will market to the RIAA and MPAA types. It looks like a substantial infrastructure needs to be in place in order to enable Rights Management content, and the consumer^H^H^H^H user will access protected material by going to a specially engineered web site using IE 6. They also mention a "lockbox", whatever that is.
They mention some of the technologies used: COM+, an Active Directory server,
Your average hobbyist programmer or shareware programmer isn't going to be able to participate in this. Something tells me the licensing fees won't be cheap. The "right" to access protected material obviously come from certificates, and that model of PKI has proved to be troublesome at best. Furthermore, the "rights" being protected by this setup are those that perpetuate the aims of the RIAA, the MPAA and the like.
They're not about to let anybody get in on this protection racket. The certificates will no doubt be VERY expensive for the content producers so that the barrier to entry is high. They don't want some kid in Hong Kong to encode his music files using this technology and then give them away to others, fully within the confines of this system. This is really bad, because anyone even tinkering around with the technology without a license will automatically become a criminal under the DMA.