Cory Doctorow points to an article (that’s currently slashdotted) about Microsoft’s plan to disable high-def video playback in 32-bit versions of Windows Vista. It seems that there are too many ways to hack around Microsoft’s copy protection scheme in the 32-bit version, so Microsoft has simply thrown in the towel and told a substantial fraction of its customers that they’re out of luck.
As Doctorow notes, this creates an interesting perverse incentive, since movies downloaded from illegal file-sharing sites will work just fine. Is Hollywood trying to drive its customers into the arms of pirates?
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