Bill Erickson
New Media Entrepreneur

I’ve had bad luck with DRM today. First with Apple, then Microsoft. Let’s start with Apple:

This is what it said on my laptop when I tried to download ze frank’s album:

“You have already authorized five computers. You can still purchase music on this computer, but you will need to transfer any purchased songs to an authorized machine to play them. If you wish to play songs on this computer, you will first need to deauthorize a currently authorized computer.”

So I can buy the songs, just not listen to them. Great!

There are only 5 computers in my house - including my laptop - so there’s no way I’ve used up all the authorizations.

And when I tried to “Deauthorize all” it said “You can only do this once a year. You must wait until July 11, 2007.” What possible reason do they have for limiting it to one year?

When I get access to my music again, I’m removing the DRM. Any suggestions on the best software out there? I don’t really feel like burning a bunch of CD’s, but I will if I have to.

Now to Microsoft. I use PC’s as HTPC’s (Home Theatre PC’s) because they’re cheaper and most home theatre hardware/software is windows-only. I have an “extra” that I’m going to hook up at my lake house this summer, so I’ve been playing around with different OS’s on it until then. I purchased a legal copy of Windows for it (just like all my HTPC’s), and I’ve installed it a couple of times on the same box.

Recently, I received an invitation from Microsoft to try out their new Windows Home Server. I thought “Great, this would be really helpful to manage my media around my house. Might as well throw it on the extra and give it a shot.” Well I tried installing it, and after erasing the current operating system the install said something along the lines of “Sorry, installation failed.”

Oh well, no big loss. I’ll just throw in my Windows XP disk and get it up and running again. Nope, I’ve used my license too many times. Now I’ve never run into this problem before because usually I buy my PC’s from manufacturers like Dell or eMachines, and their restore cd’s never limit you to a certain number of restores.

But I have to give Microsoft credit. I called their License Tech Support and within a few minutes I was able to get some code to install it.

And this is what really pisses me off about Apple’s DRM. Microsoft, which is using it to protect a piece of software that costs a few hundred dollars, is able to quickly resolve DRM issues. But Apple, protecting $.99 songs - which really don’t need protecting anyway - picks arbitrary boundaries and once you cross them there’s no easy way to fix it.

Only 5 authorized computers, and can only reset them once a year. Simply retarded.

/end rant