Why Would Any Company Trust Microsoft Over DRM Ever Again?

from the fool-me-once dept

Wed, Dec 19th 2007 1:42pm — Mike Masnick

It really was just last week, right, that Microsoft was last seen totally screwing over all those partners who had signed up to use its misnamed "PlaysForSure" DRM? Apparently, bygones are bygones and other companies have no problem stepping right up into Microsoft's embrace on a new DRM solution -- this time in the mobile space. Nokia is apparently agreeing to use Microsoft's mobile DRM offering dubbed "PlayReady" on a variety of Nokia devices. You would have thought that after the PlaysForSure debacle, Microsoft would avoid dubbing its DRM anything similar. Give it a few years and perhaps Microsoft will support some totally different DRM on its own phones (like it did with the Zune) and then we can ask again what Nokia was thinking.

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Filed Under: drm, mobile, playready
Companies: microsoft, nokia

19 Comments

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Benjie, 19 Dec 2007 @ 1:58pm

we trusted them in the first place?
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illegalprelude, 19 Dec 2007 @ 2:23pm

I really dont get it either. DO the companies just not hear about this stuff? or is there so many divisions that one might here but the one making the related choice didnt?

Or alot of big corporate partnerships and interests that we dont know about but this kinds of actions always baffle me.
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zcat, 19 Dec 2007 @ 3:01pm

or anything else...?!!
You remember that old Peanuts cartoon, where Lucy holds the ball for Linux, and at the last minute she pulls it away and Linux falls on his butt? Why would Linux trust Lucy the next time? I don't know, but somehow he always did.

Watching companies put their trust in Microsoft always reminds me of this cartoon.. you just know that at the last moment Microsoft are going to pull the ball away and that company is going to fall flat on their butt. But they still do it.

WHY?!!!
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zcat, 19 Dec 2007 @ 3:03pm

Oops...
s/linux/linus/ in the above message.. and I managed to make the same typo more than once?!! No way...
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zcat, 19 Dec 2007 @ 3:05pm

experiment
I think Techdirt might be 'correcting' the name of Peanuts character/OS creator Linus because I'm sure I didn't mistype it three times. This one definately ends with an S so lets see what happens.
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sychodelix, 19 Dec 2007 @ 3:10pm

Not to mention Charlie Brown tries to kick the football, not Linus.
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stueycaster, 19 Dec 2007 @ 3:23pm

Re:
Right.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Dec 2007 @ 3:27pm

clever
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zcat, 19 Dec 2007 @ 3:42pm

Duh...
Yeah.. OK, so I really messed up. But you get the idea though!
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zcat, 19 Dec 2007 @ 4:01pm

Bah... some links.
http://www.snoopy.co.jp/fungames/html/images/c4b_football.gif
http://www.peanutscollectorclub.com/f ootball.html
http://pratie.blogspot.com/2005/09/charlie-brown-and-lucy-and-football.html

Spread the meme.. we need a link to the Peanuts football gag every time some company trusts Microsoft from now on..
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Mirage, 19 Dec 2007 @ 4:08pm

That's not a meme.
It's not a meme unless someone cares. =P

Richard Dawkins coined the term to describe a basic unit of culture, not Chuck Norris and lolcats.

(Although those two have arguably grown to true memetic status)

Anyway, that's beside the point. The point is, as long as Microsoft's DRM continues to fail to work, I'm happy.

=D
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Dec 2007 @ 4:15pm

Maybe the companies like the fact that customer needs to repurchase their music every few years? It's applying forced obsolescence to the digital music realm.
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Reality check..., 19 Dec 2007 @ 5:37pm

Trusting Microsoft with DRM
... get a Mac and an iPod... the music has been great for years!
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TX CHL Instructor (profile), 19 Dec 2007 @ 6:47pm

Vista...
Vista is the best thing that Microsoft has ever done... for Apple. When I could not find a local store with a computer that didn't have Vista on it, I finally broke down and looked at Apple. Now I could kick myself for taking so long.

I think MS has jumped the shark.
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jj, 19 Dec 2007 @ 9:20pm

While Apple is off the topic...
With new QuickTime versions and newer operating systems, older Apple computers are made obsolete by being unable to access iTunes Store content, no trailers, no previews, no nothing. My clamshells are Jaguar bookshelves.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2007 @ 1:22am

@txchl
Why didnt you just build your own with xp. Its like lego
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2007 @ 3:43am

GOI TO HELL
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Nick, 7 Jan 2008 @ 12:34am

McAfee's criminal behavior.
Tucows is a respected and trusted software vendor, and unlike McAfee has a unbiased review system. There is no reason other than unfair competition that McAfee should be commiting Libel aganist Tucows.

To understand the situation completely we must look at the soure, McAfee.com

It's important to say from the beginning, it would be impossible for almost any company to be any worse than McAfee. McAfee is a known criminal organization, and it doesn't surprise me in the least that they are attacking online merchants that may sell competing products. McAfee is currently restating 10 years of earnings, because it stoled money from share holders. First by purposely overstating earnings(people are already in jail for this one), and then by back dating options(resulting in the theft of $150,000,000 from share holders).

I have to ask myself at this point, what gives McAfee the moral authority to attack legitimate websites. When it would almost be impossible for any company to match McAfee's criminal behavior. There are literally old folks that had their retirement stolen from them by this company.

Finally, who are these people doing the reviewing? It took me less than two minutes to sign up. There was no verification of my identity, residence, or anything else that would make me accountable for my statements. You can become an advanced reviewer by responding to a couple of more questions, none of which have anything to do with establishing your identity, just your supposed ability. Making it easy for anyone to lie about their resume.
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jaky, 1 Dec 2008 @ 4:21am

Re: McAfee's criminal behavior.
Vista is the best thing that Microsoft has ever done... for Apple. When I could not find a local store with a computer that didn't have Vista laptop AC adapter on it, I finally broke down and looked at Apple. Now I could kick myself for taking so long.
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