No Love for DRM

This is why some companies just don’t get it in this digital era we live in. Tonight, while watching the season finale of 24, which was insane by the way, I saw an ad about Burger King’s MySpace page where you could download a free episode of 24.

Cool…or so I thought. First of all, it was over 300 MB, and that was as a compressed file. After the file decompressed, I realized that it was a Windows Media Player file, to my horror. I got over the shock and attempted to open the file only to be alerted that I needed a newer version of Windows Media Player that supported the encryption in the file. When I clicked the link to download an updated Media Player, in true Microsoft fashion, the only thing I found was the version I currently have on my machine, which has been around for a while.

So, no luck for me on my 24 episode. I can download it from iTunes for $1.99, and I probably would, if I could burn that purchased episode onto a DVD, which I think I should be able to under my fair use rights, but apparently not. I don’t really blame Apple – I’m sure that they needed to do something like that in order for the media companies to get on board with their download service.

How about this? If you’re going to give something digital away for free, don’t put all sorts of weird encryption on it so that people plain can’t play it. Why do you need the encryption if you are giving the thing away for FREE?!?! And, if I’m going to buy something, then I OWN it. You’ve got your money, so let me do with it what I want. If I want to burn a copy for myself, then let me. Come on people, it’s not that hard. You’ll probably get even more sales if you don’t implement all these crazy restrictions on what your customer can and cannot do.

Just some thoughts from a slightly irritated nerd.

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