Used and abused: About DRM…

Both news articles and forum-talk on various spots in the Web are focusing on Microsoft Office 2003 and its use of Digital Rights Management technology, also known as DRM. Users who make Office 2003 documents will have the ability to restrict who opens any file made by the software. While at first blush this may seem like a good thing, there is also the potential for Microsoft, in its usual fashion, to use its monopoly and this new technology to gain a bigger stranglehold on the computer industry.

Currently, software companies can compete with MS Office, at least on some basis, because they can engineer document filters that make their own formats and those of Microsoft’s interchangeable. But some folks already playing with Office 2003 are reporting they cannot open even unguarded documents with anything than Office 2003. Error messages are stating that they must have a “DRM” client to open the files. The only current DRM client software is in Office 2003. Effectively, this means that document interchangeability with anything other than Office may become a thing of the past. Through this door, Microsoft can effectively shut out competition until the competition collapses. And it is likely that Microsoft will do just that given the weak pursuit of them by our current Department of Justice. Indeed the Department of Homeland Security’s choice of Microsoft as their software provider will bolster their case as paranoid as American are right now about anything even purported to pertain to national security.

DRM and product activation technologies have the potential to plunge the computer industry into the darkest days they’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s up to us consumers to take them there. I’m not going to spend money on anything that makes my life harder or takes away from me capability I had before. I urge everyone to inform themselves about how these new technologies are being utilized and boycott those companies who are putting the consumer’s interests behind their own.