The DRM in Vista sucks not just because it could hinder you when you watch legally owned content, but because it's wasting CPU cycles all the time, just in case you might. Here's Bruce Schneier:

The details are pretty geeky, but basically Microsoft has reworked a lot of the core operating system to add copy protection technology for new media formats like HD-DVD and Blu-ray disks. Certain high-quality output paths--audio and video--are reserved for protected peripheral devices. Sometimes output quality is artificially degraded; sometimes output is prevented entirely. And Vista continuously spends CPU time monitoring itself, trying to figure out if you're doing something that it thinks you shouldn't. If it does, it limits functionality and in extreme cases restarts just the video subsystem. We still don't know the exact details of all this, and how far-reaching it is, but it doesn't look good.

Of course, MS says they "had" to do this, or else Hollywood would go elsewhere. Excuse me? Where else would they go? Last time I looked, MS had well over 90% of the client platforms. Does anyone think Hollywood would actually just take their ball and go home?

It's all complete nonsense. Microsoft could have easily told the entertainment industry that it was not going to deliberately cripple its operating system, take it or leave it. With 95% of the operating system market, where else would Hollywood go? Sure, Big Media has been pushing DRM, but recently some--Sony after their 2005 debacle and now EMI Group--are having second thoughts.

The only question left is this: Is MS at the beck and call of Hollywood, are they just stupid, or are they trying to do an end-around on Apple and own the next generation iTunes-type setup? I'd guess the third, but at this point, I wouldn't rule stupidity out of the mix.

Technorati Tags: PVP-OPM, Vista, Windows