Western Digital cripples (well, tries to cripple) network drives

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Geoff Kuenning <geoff () cs hmc edu>
Date: December 9, 2007 6:44:00 AM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: Ip Ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: Western Digital cripples (well, tries to cripple) network  
drives

Bill Williamson writes:

> -buy one of their NAS appliance hard drives
> -sign up for the service
> -load up a bunch of movies
> -give the password to 50000 of your closest friends
> Suddenly WD is a willing, and perhaps even legally encouraging,
> partner in copyright infringement.

What a crock.  By that logic, Xerox would be liable for copyright
infringement every time somebody slapped a copyrighed work into a
photocopying machine, and JVC would be liable for every VHS tape used
to record and share a TV program.

The courts dealt with these issues long ago.  The supplier of the
technology is not responsible for its misuse.  Furthermore, I could
make a good argument that WD is guilty of fraud for selling me this
file-sharing service and then preventing me from sharing my home
movies just because they have an "AVI" extension.

(And I can't help noting that they _don't_ prohibit .wav or .flac, so
if I rip my CDs into a lossless format, they aren't protecting
Hollywood at all.  It's only if I choose .mp3 that they go all
Big-Brother on me.)
--
   Geoff Kuenning   geoff () cs hmc edu   http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~geoff/

"Du kannst dem Leben nicht mehr Tage geben, aber den Tag mehr Leben."
        -- Anonymous
(You can't give your life more days, but you can give your days more  
life.)


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