iTunes or WMV more restrictive at Scattered

iTunes or WMV more restrictive

9 months, 4 weeks ago

. Tags: drm, itunes, linux, nbc, windows media, wmv.

I’m really sick of all the content being fed by Windows Media DRM.

This time around it’s NBC Direct.

iTunes is not OS dependent
iTunes is not Browser specific
iTunes does not require media keys
iTunes “just works”
iTunes has been a proven success

So the the change? It’s all about control and WMV let’s them screw the consumer all they want by requiring the “hoops” for the lemmings and screwing the majority of the world with non-WMV DRM players, but those Zune owners are stoked.
It’s just one more thing Mac users to deal with. I would say another complication with Linux too but since I’m comparing the DRM schemes to iTunes it’s meaningless.

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Jared 9 months ago 1 point
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DRM is crap no matter how you serve it.

There's not a debate I'm less interested in than which platform makes DRM the easiest to use.

If anything, I'd love for DRM to be as difficult to use as possible; making it easy to use = making it easy for consumers to adopt, which in the end is a bad thing in my book.

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Dan Cameron 9 months ago 1 point
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And again, you favor MS over Apple. ;)

I agree but I don't think it will happen, MS will rule the world because they give what the greedy corporations want more then anyone.

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Jared 9 months ago 1 point
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I wasn't talking about MS or Apple specifically in my comment, although you were in your post.

One thing you should remember though (since you mentioned the "majority of the world"): most people are running Windows (for better or worse) and will be able to use WMV DRM fairly easily.

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Dan Cameron 9 months ago 1 point
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"most people are running Windows (for better or worse)"
further monopolizing the market by not supporting other platforms, even firefox isn't supported.

"and will be able to use WMV DRM fairly easily."
That's subjective to your experience of not using the WMV DRMed applications, according to multiple reports it takes at least "10 minutes" to setup, that's not "fairly easy". Even WMA DRM is awful, which I've used for the Yahoo! music store before.

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Jared 9 months ago 1 point
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Not to defend Windows or DRM, but the IE only requirement is imposed by NBC Direct and the way they wrote the software, not by Microsoft, so you can't really call it a monopoly play.

NBC could have written a client that showed the restricted content without requiring any specific browser at all (by going the same route that iTunes takes). WMV does not depend on IE, NBC's app does.

You are right about me not using this particular (or any other) WMV DRM apps, though. I'd rather not, but I'm just pointing out that most of the drawbacks you're referring to here (IE requirement, long setup time, etc.) are not because of Microsoft, but because of how NBC decided to build their app.

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nstryker 9 months ago 1 point
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i don't know why anyone offers any web video outside of flash anymore.

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Jared 9 months ago 1 point
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Some would say because of quality, but it's also probably because it isn't restrictive enough for the content providers.

For the most part, they are the ones that really drive the requirement to make it as locked down as possible, because they believe that's the only way they can make money.

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Dan Cameron 9 months ago 1 point
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Oh, that makes sense I always thought it was Steve Jobs driving DRM.

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Jared 9 months ago 1 point
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I wasn't going to go there, since we've been there so many times before, but yes, Apple also has a strong interest in keeping the content they sell restricted.

I figured that since they've now been pressured away from holding onto that position that we could drop that subject, since it's not as relevant anymore.

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I'm a Lead Web Developer and Web Manager in Ventura CA, I contribute to the Wordpress community through themes and plugins. Here at Scattered I tend to write about technology with a tendency to post more about Apple, Wordpress or Linux. I micro-blog at Twitter. I have a NEW LifeStream site because I'm part of a lot of social networks, search 'dancameron'. Meta: I'm married to Sara, our daughter is Avery our newbie son is Sawyer. I try to play as much golf and softball as I can. The rest of my web life is locked behind facebook.

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