más DRM

En slashdot han hablado de un magnífico artículo que analiza el "hogar digital" desde un punto de vista de un economista. Me gusta especialmente estos párrafos sobre DRM:

In DRM, the situation is even more chaotic. Microsoft pushes its Windows DRM; RealNetworks, which makes rival media software, has Helix; Sony has OpenMG; Apple likes FairPlay, and so on. The upshot is that consumers cannot mix online services, gadgets and software from different vendors and be sure that the content they have paid for actually works. Music bought online from Microsoft's MSN or Yahoo!, for instance, does not work on Apple's iTunes or iPod, and vice versa.

This challenge is daunting because DRM technologies should not only be compatible today, but for all eternity. Otherwise, consumers will be afraid to pay for content, and will stick with CDs and DVDs, which seem painless and safe by comparison. “If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed,” says Peter Lee, an executive at Disney. The same goes for codecs. “The user shouldn't know or care what format they're using,” says James Poder, an engineer at Comcast, America's largest cable company and broadband internet service provider, because “consumers don't want to be IT administrators for their own home.”