On Tuesday 26 December 2006 5:24 pm, Kevin Brown wrote:
> > Anyone who knows better, feel free to correct me on this if I'm wrong...
> > My son has gone through a few CD players over the years, and it's been
> > my experience that almost all of them WILL play OGG files. The same seems
> > to be true with playing audio files in most home CD/DVD players as well
> > (Look at any commercial audio CD filesystem in your computer, and you'll
> > see OGG files are present on them as well). So, why does it seem to be
> > kept such a secret? I was shopping around for a PMP that played OGG files
> > this Christmas, and had very limited success. Here's as much of an
> > explanation as I could figure out from the research I did on the matter.
> > I seems that the DMCA, which is the law that makes it illegal to copy
> > any copy protected digital material for pretty much *any* reason, relies
> > heavily on DRM to enforce it. DRM is basically a MicroSoft invention, and
> > MicroSoft refuses to work with open formats like Ogg/Vorbis because they
> > cannot control the open source development of them. Since MicroSoft
> > controls 95% of the desktop market, that makes it essentially *illegal*
> > to sell or promote Ogg/Vorbis friendly hardware in the U.S. of A. no
> > matter how popular the format is in the rest of the world. It's a grey
> > area to be sure, but grey enough that US merchants won't touch it.
> > If I want an Ogg/Vorbis compatible PMP, I'll likely have to order one
> > from England.
>
> I don't think MS has anything to do with this. More likely the media
> companies themselves are the reason that support for these formats
> aren't advertised. MS didn't invent the CSS that is used on DVDs and
> had nothing to do with the DRM that Apple utilizes on purchases from the
> ITMS.
I agree with you on the basic points, but I think there's more to it than
that. MicroSoft is famous for "SCOing" other entities into doing their
dirty-work for them, and greedy people are the easiest ones to take advantage
of. Here's a quote from a very good article about MicroSoft's Vista copy
protection plans (courtesy of Bad Vista) at:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
"In July 2006, Cory Doctorow published an analysis of the anti-competitive
nature of Apple's iTunes copy-restriction system ("Apple's Copy Protection
Isn't Just Bad For Consumers, It's Bad For Business", Cory Doctorow,
Information Week, 31 July 2006). The only reason I can imagine why Microsoft
would put its programmers, device vendors, third-party developers, and
ultimately its customers, through this much pain is because once this copy
protection is entrenched, Microsoft will completely own the distribution
channel. In the same way that Apple has managed to acquire a monopolistic
lock-in on their music distribution channel (an example being the Motorola
ROKR fiasco, which was so crippled by Apple-imposed restrictions that it was
dead the moment it appeared), so Microsoft will totally control the premium-
content distribution channel. Not only will they be able to lock out any
competitors, but because they will then represent the only available
distribution channel they'll be able to dictate terms back to the content
providers whose needs they are nominally serving in the same way that Apple
has already dictated terms back to the music industry: Play by Apple's rules,
or we won't carry your content. The result will be a technologically enforced
monopoly that makes their current de-facto Windows monopoly seem like a velvet
glove in comparison."
The entire article makes for some very interesting reading.
On a similar note, it will be interesting to see what's left of Novell
*after* their 5 year agreement with MicroSoft expires...
---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings:
http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
(text/plain)