Friday, January 26, 2007

Government Use of DRM

A debate over whether it is appropriate to allow governments to use proprietary DRM standards. For example Norway's government is using them from Microsoft for a video streaming technology. Of course an Microsoft employee thinks it appalling that people think its wrong. Here is my take on it. What this proprietary format does is limit choice and stifle innovation. For one thing people who choose Linux are impeded from viewing the videos. Secondly those who write software to view video content are blocked from creating players to view the video. For the blogger employee from Microsoft, you should know that blocking content to all but Microsoft customers is the part that is immoral. Norway citizens should have the choice if they decide to view content from their government who they support of what platform they do it from. For my government if they provide content of which I want to view then it better be in a format i can view. Something open and free that is the nature of a democratic government.

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