http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/12/07/western_digital_drm_crippled_harddrive/

http://www.ngohq.com/news/12964-western-digital-drive-drm-crippled-your-safety.html

"Western Digital's 1TB My Book World Edition external hard drive has been crippled by DRM for your safety. A kindly Reg reader tipped us off that the remote-access HDD won't share media files over network connections. Which is, as you can see here, the entire stinking point of it. It's a scary world full of potentially unlicensed media. We're fortunate there's a hard drive vendor willing to step forward and do some indiscriminate policing for us."

Western Digital drive is DRM-crippled for your safety
By Austin Modine [More by this author]
7th December 2007 18:58 GMT

"Western Digital's 1TB My Book World Edition external hard drive has been crippled by DRM for your safety.

A kindly Reg reader tipped us off that the remote-access HDD won't share media files over network connections. Which is, as you can see here, the entire stinking point of it.

It's a scary world full of potentially unlicensed media. We're fortunate there's a hard drive vendor willing to step forward and do some indiscriminate policing for us.

From the WD site:

"Due to unverifiable media license authentication, the most common audio and video file types cannot be shared with different users using WD Anywhere Access."

WD's list of banned file types encompasses over 35 extensions. This includes AAC, MP3, AVI, DivX, WMV, and Quicktime files. And why not — Windows TMP files too.

The storage device is billed as a "surprisingly simple and secure way to access and share data and photos" using your home or office network. And technically that's true — namely, the "way" in question is not letting you do it. Abstinence is simple and secure. You've got to hand it to Western Digital.

If you must have the drive, you could work around the crippled WD Anywhere Access client app. Or be satisfied sharing your impressive collection of .doc files. But this is — supposedly — a remote access hard drive.

So what's the point if WD is going to use a shotgun feature killing technique and assume there isn't a legitimate and legal reason to share an AVI file? (Hello, digital camera).

That's a very good question."

1TB is impressive. But if it won't do everything people need, people simply won't buy it no matter how much space it has. Sounds like a real winning plan, WD!

I Hate DRM

Consumers need to become united nationwide with a powerful anti-purchasing force against all DRM.
I keep hoping somebody will find a way to rally enough people to "voice" protests by withholding their pursestrings.

(And keep up the pressure against Vista, too, while we're at it. It's intrusive.)

I think market forces will prevail here. 1TB of inaccessible content? Who needs it??

Why do they even put this crap on the market? Who is going to want to own a hard drive that has already been crippled? Seriously, what gives, Western Digital?

1TB drives (unless it's 2x500GB) aren't very stable anyway... But how long until PC hard drives by this company (and others) start adding hardware to do this kind of policing? Then we're all truly stuffed.

I'm assuming of course the crippling takes place within the device and not the hard drive...

Western Digital's 1TB My Book World Edition external hard drive -- $300.00

Wireless Router -- $79.00

Wireless Adapter for Laptop -- $49.00

Not being able to share your music files anywhere because of DRM -- WORTHLESS

Looks like we have someone new we can boycott. Let's add ALL Western Digital products to the list.

Now this certainly doesnt excuse their blatent lies in advertising, but upon 5 minutes of research it is apparent that these harddrives are not DRM crippled at all. What IS crippled is the remote access software that is being bundled with the drive. This software makes it impossible to share the aforementioned content with random users over the internet while using the Western Digital remote access software. This software not only does not stop sharing over a personal network, it doesnt even need to be installed to use the drive on a wired/wireless home/office network.

I think the headlines in this case are extremely misleading.

The hardware per-se isn't hosting the file restrictions, but it's the drivers and client software which is so misguided. The genuine insanity is twofold: (a) file extensions can simply be translated, trivially negating any DRM functionality, (b) every file format and extension listed can contain media created by the user, meaning the system is attempting to ban the user from storing their own personally created data. While doing nothing meaningful for content restriction and while attempting to impair a user's right to store their own data on their own hard drive, the system does quite well at making Western Digital look hostile to consumers. The users will probably remember this for years. I'm sure Seagate is quite happy to serve would-be WD consumers.

Just don't use the bundled software if you want to avoid these problems seems too obvious ??

Just drag and drop files by windows or mac osx and these restrictions are negated. It seems a poor business decision and I hate the fact that this gives the RIAA more ammunition to posture, but I don't really blame them in this ridiculous litigious society. Most bundled backup and transfer software with HDDs is garbage and you can bet they are not acting in isolation, probably Seagate, Maxtor and others may also go this route. I don't use the backup software provided by Maxtor for my One Touch Ultra III, it's pretty poor and I just drop and drag files to the HDD no probs.

But remember the hard drive itself is not crippled.