Why DRM's bad!
Microsoft is at it again. They're once again going to make a drastic change to the most important file format on the face of the planet, which will have a serious impact on the way the world works.

The change they're making is adding Digital Rights Management capabilities to Office 2003 (and outlook). The article about the scheme doesn't really go into some of the insidious problems with this plan, but it does allude to the issues.

Q. How do you prevent a disgruntled employee from making copies of internal memos which show the company(tm) is engaging in illegal practices?

A. Why you can use Office 2003 Information Rights Management to make sure that the memo can never be forwarded, and only read from location x.

Q. How do you sexually harass an employee and get away with it?

A. You send sexually explicit emails in Outlook which disappear once they have been read by the recipient! (of course)

Q. How do you modify the MS-Word(tm) .DOC file format in such a way that you can prevent other people from making .DOC compatible office-products, thus ensuring your dominance in the business marketplace?

A. Why, you make Office encrypt all IRM documents so people can't read the contents of the document through some other means. And, since you're already making the API's to encrypt IRM enabled documents, you go ahead and have the program encrypt _ALL_ documents.

And, as a bonus, the DMCA will then prevent your competitors from reverse engineering your encrypted document format because it's against the law! And although some hobbiests may be willing to bend the law for their hobby, I'm pretty sure that Corel and Sun won't risk breaking the law for their Star Office and WordPerfect products.

I suspect Gates originally wanted to look at DRM/IRM inclusion into Outlook (and word) because of his own problem with digital memo leakage but I'm sure the idea that it will give them an opportunity to extend (and embrace) the DOC file format in new ways, breaking compatibility for competing products was not lost by Microsoft either.

DRM in conjunction with the DMCA will make it impossible for third-parties to read document formats. DRM will make it easier for companies to engage in illegal activities and have no fear of reprisal. DRM is just bad.

Posted at: 15:05 on 22/02/2003   [ /essays ] #