14. December 2004 · Comments Off on The DRM Monster Rears Its Ugly Head · Categories: Technology, That's Entertainment!

Sander Sassen reports in Hardware Analysis on Digital Rights Management at its worst:

That agreement, amongst other things, stated that I could only play back the content for a period of five days, on the computer I installed the InterActual Player application onto, after which I had to re-acquire a license. To be honest that really pissed me off, I spent about an hour trying to play back a disc I legitimately bought and went as far as installing and updating a 3rd party application to my system that would allow me to do so, and now I’m only being given a temporary license, where’s my rights as a consumer? If this is how future DRM protected content will be distributed I have strong objections to the use of DRM, as this is a prime example of how to quickly alienate any prospective consumers. If a license is given and the content decrypted isn’t it clear that I’m the rightful owner? Can’t I decide for myself when and where I want to play this content back on? Obviously Artisan Home Entertainment Inc. has other ideas about that, ideas they should clearly communicate on the dvd cover, instead of simply omitting them to prevent people not buying this two-disk dvd set. Shame on you Artisan Home Entertainment Inc. and may this serve as a prime example of DRM at its worst.

I wonder if Artisan would be fortcoming with a refund?

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