IP Democracy: Sony's DRM Fiasco is Only the Beginning

ZDNet’s David Berlind has a longish, thoughtful piece about the “untold” story of Sony’s DRM fiasco. In essence Berlind warns that the real problem isn’t Sony’s lack of judgment and public apology but the fact that DRM is popping up all over the place.

Berlind warns that the next big arena for DRM disaster is video.

Sony’s rootkit, as bad as it was, isn’t the real story. The way the entertainment cartel is applying DRM as a whole is the real story. They’re applying DRM in a way that the Sony fiasco was inevitable. This wasn’t the first time lack of DRM interoperability manifested itself in the end-user experience in an ugly way, and it won’t be the last. Sure, the rest of the entertainment industry is rewriting its DRM playbook to keep from repeating Sony’s history. But rest assured, another DRM-inspired trainwreck will come along that will light the grapevine ablaze and some other content company will end up with egg on its face when, in reality, it’s Microsoft and Apple that we should really be angry with; two companies that are driving incompatible DRM technologies into the marketplace in a way that twists the royal (or should that be “royalty”) screws into the world.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 19, 2005 5:43 PM to IP Democracy