Begin forwarded message:
From: Dana Blankenhorn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: October 4, 2006 10:20:04 PM EDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Microsoft Plans For Automatic Hobbling of
"Pirated" Vista Systems
It is true that folks who don't like this Microsoft policy now have
an alternative, in Linux, which is viable, and which they can still
obtain without mandatory DRM.
Of course, they can't use anything but "pirated" content with it
because DRM has become mandatory and the copyright industries want
you in jail if you try to create a workaround.
This brings me to the larger problem in Open Source, which I write
about at ZDNet regularly. The business model has yet to scale toward
the mass market. http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=803
Instead of complaining about this, it might be a better idea to find
a way where we can profit by solving the problem.
Dana Blankenhorn [EMAIL PROTECTED]
editor www.voic.us
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Farber" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 2:41 PM
Subject: [IP] more on Microsoft Plans For Automatic Hobbling of
"Pirated" Vista Systems
Begin forwarded message:
From: Warren Magnus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: October 4, 2006 1:33:20 PM EDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Microsoft Plans For Automatic Hobbling of
"Pirated" Vista Systems
David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
From: "David P. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: October 4, 2006 12:34:10 PM EDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [IP] Microsoft Plans For Automatic Hobbling of
"Pirated" Vista Systems
I don't always agree with Lauren, but on this one, I do.
There must be a few people in the Microsoft leadership (Ballmer,
perhaps?) who have come to view their customers as enemies or at
least peons who must bow down to the power of Microsoft in all
things.
Microsoft sees pirates - and it blames its customers.
Microsoft sees pirates, and it lays a minefield in the path of
all its customers, to blow up anyone unsuspecting enough to walk
into that minefield.
Microsoft behaves, in other words, like any power-mad dictator
who feels the need to punish the many for the problems it suffers
from the few.
Is this the only approach that might make sense? I guess it is
when your management adopts a paranoid mindset.
I'd suggest an alternative: think creatively about how to
encourage customers to see the value you deliver. Stop building
your success on "controlling the market" and "lockin" that
delivers not new value, but instead late, buggy crap with a few
features thrown in.
Dave,
This is the usual anti-DRM argument and frankly I subscribe to this
position in general. However, having lost this argument numerous
times in the past with developers of other software, customer
compliance with copyright enforcement strategies has laid the
groundwork for this and proven that customers are totally OK with
this kind of corporate behavior. Consumers apparently have no
problem at all being treated like active criminals.
For years, Adobe, Microsoft, and everybody else who sells software
has used phone home registration schemes and lengthy serial number
keys. Some software won't even let you install on a second machine
unless you uninstall on the first machine (Adobe, I'm talking to
you). Users tolerate this without complaint and continue to vote
with their wallets. Users buy the software anyhow.
Further, I expect that despite the capabilities to throttle down
or even disable Vista systems, the mechanisms will be used to
target the big piracy players. East Asian copy houses that crank
out pirated CD- ROMs and publish stolen CD-keys along with them.
Being able to shut down the user might well limit demand for the
big mass produced pirate copies.
Setting the threshold to forgive small scale copying would mean
that a family could get away with installing the same serial
number of Vista on more than one machine. Microsoft has already
shown huge leniency with this kind of soft piracy with regard to
Windows One Care which carries a 3 machine license that doesn't
check to see whether there are really only 3 machines installed
with a single CD- key. Similarly the Student/Teacher Editition of
Microsoft Office is very soft on the enforcement of the 3 machine
license limit.
-W
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