DRM drives ex-Microsoft employee to Linux

Found on CNet News on Saturday, 29 September 2007
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Jesper Johansson--a former senior program manager for security policy at Microsoft who moved to Amazon in September last year--wrote in his blog on Monday that he may drop Windows Media Center for LinuxMCE, a free open-source add-on to the Kubuntu desktop operating system, because problems caused by Microsoft's digital-rights management (DRM) software have proven so difficult to fix.

Johansson said that DRM software is not only ineffective, but a waste of money that is damaging businesses attempting to use it to control the way consumers use copyright material.

quot;How many billions has the industry spent on DRM schemes that the bad guys break in weeks? How many perfectly legitimate users has the industry annoyed and driven away? How many lost DVD sales has it caused? How many lost sales of Microsoft's Media Center software and Windows Vista has it caused because the DRM subsystem randomly decides that you must be a criminal?quot; Johansson wrote.

So far, DRM has stopped nothing. All movies and songs are available online in free formats, quite often even before the offical release date. DRM only succeeded in annoying legitimate users.