Intel has recently launched its VIIV platform for the Australian market and to those who are new to VIIV it’s Intel’s platform for Media Center PCs. That DRM (Digital Rights Management) is an intricate part of Intel’s VIIV platform is no surprise as you with a VIIV system, and other Media Center computers, is expected to play most digital sounds and video format. Depending on how the future’s multimedia and platforms handle DRM there may very well be very hard restrictions for how you can use your legal material. We know that many movie studios wants to stop any copying of the movie or at least limit the usage to a few units. For those who wants spread the music and movies in the movie it could mean that you will have to pay for the same product more than once. Something that has braught many consumers to rage, and now even Intel.
During the launch of VIIV in Australia Intel shared its view on DRM and its wants to offer the consumers the possibility to do whatever they want with its legal material. No matter if its copying the movie to an external disk or stream the signal to more units in the home. At the same time it announced that VIIV will not act “material-police” and check the media being played back, simply because it’s not Intel’s responsibility.
“Interestingly, MacDonald also told CNET.com.au that Viiv won’t be testing to see if the content being played is pirated from networks such as BitTorrent. He believes that it’s not Intel’s job to be policing downloads and that it’s wrong to assume that “all consumers are criminals”. As such, Viiv won’t test for “watermarks” or other red flags that reveal pirated content, allowing any type of media to be played.”
Both Intel and Microsoft are well aware of what too strict copy protections can do to the Media Center market that in many ways is based on storing data locally. We can just hope that this sends a clear signal to the movie and music industry.
Source: News.com
