Anyone involved with content creation at some point may be presented with decisions about DRM. Do you make your videos freely available for people to use on any device or do you try to restrict them for extra money and to prevent piracy. Well my view is DRM sucks balls and any video producer should always value increased distribution over more money. Not to the point where you are giving your video away for free but you get what I mean (hopefully).It appears that Bill Gates is also not a fan of DRM and it sounds like he hates it as much as the rest of us. It would be nice to think that the only reason that the new Vista is crammed with DRM is because Microsoft has to do it.
At a recent Mix Conference in Las Vegas Bill Gates said that DRM "causes too much pain for legitmate buyers" and that there are "huge problems" with DRM and "more flexible models" are needed.
1. Bill Gates has made a fortune on DRM and proprietary formats for many years! Many people are "stuck" with Windows and Office due to the "lock-in" and Microsoft not only provides DRM to many other companies and is one of the biggest suppliers of the technology, they even offer in several incompatible flavors! Microsoft was even the "genius" behind copy protecting audio CDs so they could not "ripped" and could ONLY be played on a Windows PC!
So give as a break Bill, with the PR tour you are currently on. Microsoft is the largest richest tech company on the planet and they could stop the "lock-in" if they desired. But instead they have promoted it to all the content owners for years and have made so, non-Windows machines could NOT even play. A bit self-serving don't you think?
Bill is NOT against DRM, and neither is his company. He is just unhappy that Apple is kicking his ass with iTunes as Microsoft slept. While Microsoft "cow-tows" the record company and the Zune is a flop due to the terrible user experience because of DRM, Apple has made the iPod/iTunes platform as friendly as possible in the DRM world.
Microsoft, actions speak louder than words. If of cause you could even play them on a NON-Windows machine!
The perfect solution for Microsoft less-obtrusive DRM for ONLY Windows so Microsoft would have any shot of catching Apple's iPod/iTunes and killing off any chance of Linux gaining ANY market-share!
Posted at 3:05PM on Dec 16th 2006 by stephen Antonucci