Mark Gilbert’s Blog

As if DRM wasn’t bad enough already, Windows Media Player 11 takes the errosion of your rights even further.

Welcome to WMP11, where backing up your music licences, or “media usage rights” as they are now called, is a thing of the past.
WMP11 will make your life better by making sure that recorded programs from premium channels in Windows Media Center expire after 3 days. Going away on holiday? Tough shit. You can’t watch the content you record when you get back.
WMP11 adds new features to ripping your music. Rip your CD’s with the copy protection turned and and you need to restore the licence you might be able to do this. You have to connect to a Micro$oft website and ask permission to play your music that you payed for. Tracking your ripping to take away rights if you rip more than once of course not, your not treated like a common criminal. Oh wait, yes you are, you are a common criminal in the eyes of the media industry.

You really should get used to this feeling of criminality. Whenever you buy DRM infected media this is going to happen more and more. None of this is a word of a lie, it’s all taken from the Micro$oft Windows Media Player 11 release notes which can be read through at your leisure on Microsoft’s website.

You can no longer move content from one PC to a different one, so when it comes to be time to get a new PC, forget easily transfering those music files you payed for. You have to sign all sorts of agreements and use the tools provided by the content industry. If you want to do it in any other way then you’re breaking the law.

When you buy DRM infected media all you really get is a hollow promise. The promise not to sue you for listening to the music you thought you bought. The media industry will really do anything it can to protect what they say they own. They will even go as far as buying government officials and put rootkits on people’s computers to protect it. Whether they own it or not is a good question though, when money changes hands, more often than not the purchaser gets ownership rights transfered to them, not so anymore with DRM and “media usage rights”. Users being able to backup media was a loophole in the whole DRM system, but it protected consumers rights. Windows can and frequently does arse up, backing up your media ensured that you wouldn’t lose it when the worst happens. Well this loophole has well and truely been closed in WMP11.

If you read the release notes about backing up media, it passes the book and says that it’s down to the store you bought it from. It says, “Windows Media Player 11 does not permit you to back up your media usage rights (previously known as licenses). The store might limit the number of times that you can restore your rights or limit the number of computers on which can use the songs or videos that you obtain from them. Some stores do not permit you to restore media usage rights at all”
So Microsoft who provides the DRm for these stores to use will take no responsibility if they do not allow you to restore your licences. They have your money, why should they give a toss about you the consumer?

Ripping from CD’s gets better, “If the file is a song you ripped from a CD with the Copy protect music option turned on, you might be able to restore your usage rights by playing the file. You will be prompted to connect to a Microsoft Web page that explains how to restore your rights a limited number of times.” So if you rip a CD with copy protect turned on, which it will no doubt be by default, you have to beg for the right to play your music. While the copy protect is optional now, whenever they feel like taking the option away they can do, you agree to updates in the WMP licence you accept when you install the thing. What then, you have to go to M$ to get permission to play the music you have on CD. Block it with Windows firewall, oh yes of course the Windows firewall isn’t full of M$ backdoors. They waited to see how WMP10 went down calling home, no big stink was raised so that gives the go ahead to this.

TV recordings from premium channels will die after 3 days. Why? because the media industry says so, that’s why. You’re lucky you don’t get locked up for questioning the notion. So record a program from what they deem a premium channel and it expires after 3 days. Tough hist if you go on holiday that media PC you payed for is useless, back to VHS tapes it is for you if you want to record that program. Your rights are simply standing in the way of them making obscene profits. How long before “premium channels” is removed and simply extended to cover all channels? That wouldn’t be the first time the rules have changed while the game is in progress.

WMP10 was the ice breaker, test the water and see how things go. WMP11 is the first of many ball breakers. Anything that gets in he way of their profits is insignificant. Your rights are have been taken away. Why? So the content industry can make even more money than the silly ammounts they already do. How can they get away with this? Because you let it happen.

I had to revise this piece so many times to remove most of the swearing, this issue just gets me so furious.

Cheers

This entry was posted on Friday, September 22nd, 2006 at 01:10 and is filed under Applications, Microsoft, Music, Software, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.