Western Digital DRM accusations
p2pnet news | DRM:- “Simplify your digital life,” says an ad for Mionet.
“Enjoy your home music, photos, and videos from anywhere. Share photos without uploading. Access your work files and applications remotely. Share documents with employees and customers.”
Then on Monday, “One of the world’s largest hard disk manufacturers has blocked its customers from sharing online their media files that are stored on networked drives,” says the BBC, going on:
“Western Digital says the decision to block sharing of music and audio files is an anti-piracy effort.The ban operates regardless of whether the files are copy-protected, or a user’s own home-produced content.”
In a post which kicked the story off, “This is the most extreme example I’ve seen yet of tech companies crippling data devices in order to please Hollywood,” said Gary on Boing Boing, going on:
“Western Digital is disabling sharing of any avi, divx, mp3, mpeg, and many other files on its network connected devices; due to unverifiable media license authentication’. Just wondering – who needs a 1 Terabyte network-connected hard drive that is prohibited from serving most media files? Perhaps somebody with 220 million pages of .txt files they need to share?”
That looks bad. Very bad.
Linux to the rescue.
But, “Western Digital has been in touch with Tech.co.uk to repel some recent web reports which criticised its Anywhere Access WD hard drives,” says Tech.co.uk.
“Some sources reported that despite being designed to share files over a network, WD’s My Book World Edition drives do not allow you to share music and video files.”
It goes on:
WD told us that it’s nothing to do with the product in question and it’s all to do with the MioNet third-party software.
“MioNet currently does not support sharing over the internet of digital file types commonly associated with copyright-protected material. These restrictions apply only to file-sharing of audio and video files between users over the internet using MioNet software. The restrictions do not pertain to Western Digital hard drives,” says Daniel Mauerhofer, director of public relations at Western Digital Europe.
“MioNet software, which is included with WD’s My Book World Edition storage appliance and sold separately, is not required for users…to share files of any kind across internal home or office networks [local area networks].
“We acknowledge that this arrangement is far from ideal, as it keeps people from using the service to share home movies and MP3s of your son’s school band [smirk - ed]. WD is trying to look at fingerprinting technology that will let it filter out copyrighted material and still allow sharing of other material.”
Meanwhile, several workarounds allow you to use your My Book World Edition “for the above purposes,” says Tech.co.uk adding:
“Firstly, don’t install the MioNet application. You can use the Samba app instead, or even use a cut-down version of Linux.
“The WD site even provides instructions on how to install Samba on your drive …”
Stay tuned.
Also See:
BBC – ‘Digital locks’ future questioned, December 10, 2007
Boing Boing – Western Digital network drives crippled — no serving any multimedia files, December 6, 2007
Tech.co.uk – Western Digital responds to DRM accusations, December 11, 2007
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December 12th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I wonder who will be stupid enought to buy these “My Book World Edition drives” that is not even a living room edition!
wHOUHAHAHAHAHAHA
December 13th, 2007 at 11:20 am
To hell with ‘em. I’ll do what I want with my property, regardless of what the manufacturer, “rights holders,” or even the government itself says I can’t do. Just because it’s illegal doesn’t mean it’s wrong; just because something’s legal doesn’t make it right.
December 15th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
This is actually the second article that dealt with this topic and Iâll say that itâs sort of frightening. Many of us use Western Digital for our storage solutions and I believe the majority of us to be legitimate users, meaning not pirates. Though itâs a 3rd party installation and can be avoided this could seriously cripple the way we share legitimate data at some point in the future. What I find most upsetting about this is that I may be prevented someday, of sharing my homemade audio and video files with anyone whom I choose.
May 17th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Are they actually trying to go out of business?
Lucky for us there are plenty of other NAS solutions that are not deliberately crippled. Hopefully this product is such a disaster for WD that they actually listen to what the consumer wants rather than give in to what corporate bullies want.