DRM: Does buying a product get you ANY rights?

You may have noticed that Microsoft has become enamoured with Digital Rights Management (DRM), or Information Rights Management (IRM) as it has been rebranded in Office 2003.  This may be the most ludicrous idea ever to come out of the convicted monopolist.

Let's begin by exploring what DRM is designed to do.  Some would say it's a technology to prevent piracy but, in fact, it is much more insidious than that.  Media companies love it because DRM lets them retain total control and provides them with the opportunity to sell you the same content again and again.  That's right... DRM allows content owners to set rules that not only restrict the copying or editing of files but also the number of times, or length of time, that content may be accessed.  Not only that, but they have the ability to change the rules at any time after your purchase decision.  Imagine having to purchase a new copy of "T' was the Night Before Christmas" every year because the publisher is able to make the book self-destruct come mid-January.

What if something happens to the DRM authorization mechanism either because of a bug or a change in the authorization code?  Can't happen?  It already has.  In releasing Update Rollup 2 for Media Center 2005, Microsoft has broken their DRM redistributable package and some content -- content that consumers have legally purchased -- is no longer accessible.  In his blog, Microsoft employee Aaron Stebner offers a temporary work-around which includes, as a necessary step, backing up your content license files (yes, I'm serious).  Stebner notes, however, that "there are some license issuers that will not allow you to store backup copies of their license files, so this backup process may not back up all licenses on your system." 

The next step in the work-around is to reset the DRM system but, he warns, "Resetting DRM restores the ability to play protected content in most cases.  However, if you use these steps to reset the DRM system and do not have backup copies of your licenses (which, as he said above, some license issuers prevent you from creating) you will lose the ability to play any previously acquired protected content.  If you have content that you do not want to lose, I would encourage you to wait until we can identify and post a fix. If you are not concerned about any previous content, I encourage you to try out the steps in the KB article - they are semi-complicated, but I have used them in the past and had some success."

What if something happens and you need to repair a computer system that contains DRM protected content?  I'll let Microsoft explain it in their own words:

The Windows Media Digital Rights Management system may not work if your computer hardware changes

Symptoms

The Microsoft Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) system may not work if you make changes to your computer hardware. You may not be able to play protected content. Protected content includes content such as songs that you have bought and downloaded from an online store.

You may receive the following error messages:

The license to play the packaged media is invalid.

C00D277F - Secure storage protection error. Restore your licenses from a previous backup and try again.

Cause
This issue occurs because the Windows Media DRM system maintains information based on the hardware configuration of the computer. If certain components are changed, Windows Media DRM may not work because it may view the change as an unauthorized attempt to move protected content to another computer.

This issue may occur if you have made one or more of the following changes to your computer hardware:

•	You recently changed hardware components, such as the CPU or the motherboard.
•	You modified any one of your computer's Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) settings that affect hardware components, such as disabling CPU hyper-threading.
•	You moved the hard disk drive from one computer to another computer.

Resolution
The resolution section has been removed for brevity.  Click the Microsoft link above for the full text.

Status

This behavior is by design.

How much of our history and culture will be lost to future generations as the result of the adoption of this ridiculous technology?  Would mankind today be better off if the works of Plato, Socrates, DaVinci, Bach, Mozart, Dickens and Shakespeare had been "protected" in this manner?

Microsoft would like you to infect your company's proprietary information with this technology.  Should an auditor, or a lawyer in a contract dispute, ask you to produce a document, you are not likely to instill confidence if your reply is that you can access your records with "some success in most cases."

As Nancy Reagan so aptly put it, "Just say no!"