Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Janus DRM Software Officially Unveiled
hype7 writes "News.com.com is reporting the official unveiling of Microsoft's new DRM system, internally dubbed 'Janus'. Interestingly enough, a wide variety of companies including AOL, Dell, Disney, Napster and Freescale, a subsidiary of Motorola, have all signed on to the technology. Whilst some content providers and producers are keen, it remains to be seen what consumers will think - 'the new digital rights management tools include features that would protect content that is streamed around a home network, or even block data pathways potentially deemed 'unsafe,' such as the traditional analog outputs on a high-definition TV set. That's a feature that has been sought by movie studios in advance of the move to digital television.' I love the quotes from the MS rep - 'This release of technology really enables all kinds of new scenarios that are emerging now,' said Jason Reindorp, a group manager in Microsoft's Windows digital media unit. 'We're taking quite a holistic view.' It's good to see Microsoft taking a holistic view of preventing the consumer doing what they want with their paid for content, and protecting us from unsafe data pathways."
* If you expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL, you should support the RIAA going after infringers of its copyright. If not, you're a hypocrite.
* There is absolutely nothing wrong with a company being upset that its product is being pirated freely over online networks. A recent Slashdot poll showed that the majority of Slashotters are unemployed or are students ("academics"), which explains a lot. Try getting a real job sometime and see what it feels like when your work is everywhere, and you start worrying that your days are numbered. Does John Carmack want you to "sample" his new game via the "free advertising" happening on eMule?
* VA Linux-owned Slashdot thinks its niche opinion represents the majority of the world. This is a result of people visiting every day and buying into the groupthink. Nobody outside of Slashdot knows or cares about "Linux," "RIAA", "M$," or anything else Slashdotters think is such a huge issue in today's society. Go to a mall or coffee shop sometime and see what people actually talk
about.
* Speaking of VA Linux--it's a Linux company...that owns a "tech news" site...that posts news stories negative toward competitors like Microsoft. If a Windows company or even Microsoft itself owned a "tech news" site and posted anti-Linux articles all the time, everyone would be up in arms. But with VA Linux, it's a-okay.
* Slashbots think people don't like the music coming out these days, which is the cause of the piracy. Never mind that if people didn't like the music they wouldn't be pirating it, most Slashbots--again, this goes back to the niche opinion thing--don't realize that most people these days love the music coming out and want to hear all of it. Probing around, you discover that Slashdot is made up of nerds and fogies who listen to things like The Who and Blind Guardian and techno--not what mainstream society enjoys.
* Any company ending in "AA" is evil. Especially if it doesn't want you distributing its works without paying for it. Somehow, this mindset is supposed to make sense.
* The inevitable result of all this is a world in which nothing can be profitable because people simply pirate free copies. Is that really what Slashbots want? OSS and free-ness in general reminds me of the hippie era of the 60s--idealistic socialism that only exists because of the surrounding capitalism around it that provides the environment for it to exist. We all know what happened to that idea.
* Slashdot editors are abusive. We all remember The Post. It's amusing the editors never mention the issue. The worst editor is michael, who will mod you down, insult you for your post count, and post unprofessional color commentary along with the article. This is the same bizarre person who cybersquatted Censorware for years--even as Slashdot posted articles negative toward cybersquatting! Michael played it off like he was some sort of stalking victim, which made it all the more bizarre.
* The moderation system is broken. If you mod someone as "Overrated," you can't be metamodded. People abuse this all the time to gang up and knock you down into oblivion.
* If "Linux" just refers to the kernel and not the operating system, how can "FreeBSD" refer to the operating system (userland tools, standard libraries, etc.) and not just the kernel? Face it, "GNU/Linux" looks and sounds ridiculous.
* Slashdot is all about spinning truth for its agenda and posting outright falsehoods. In this article, for instance, Roblimo claims that Baystar spokesman Bob McGraith "admitted" that their "only viable asset is the potential proceeds of lawsuits against Linux users and vendors." And yet, in the very next sentence, his real words are given: "We're looking for the best return we can, and we think the focus should be on IP licensing (and enforcement)." Ignoring the outright lie RobLimo posted about what was said, Bob McGraith describes what every standard IP company does-
that's not the part I was talking about. I can't imagine academic institutions or businesses being told that they can't do something because they aren't running DRM-Windows.
e.g. "we just build a 300-node beowulf supercomputer, and you want us to buy 300 DRM cards and 300 copies of DRM-Windows!? hmmm... how about go fuck yourself!"
"Janus cracked - AOL, Disney jump ship"
Wait for it.
"The cup... the drop... it's a YES!"
What, you actually think senators and congressmen care about you? They care about scratching the backs of those that donate to their campaigns. That's it. Congress was bought and paid for a long time ago. We had a chance to change things with campaign finance reform, but apparently shoveling money into a senator's campaign fund is a protected form of free speech.