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My Microsoft DRM talk video

Two years ago, I spoke at Microsoft Research, giving a talk called "DRM and MSFT: A Product No Customer Wants." The talk (see the transcript) has become a very widely cited resource on DRM, and has been translated into several languages, repurposed as an audiobook and a PowerPoint presentation, and so on. The video has apparently been one of the most-requested videos on the Microsoft internal network for years.

Now Microsoft has released this video to the public, though you need Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player to see it.

19 Responses to “My Microsoft DRM talk video”

1. Jago says:

   July 13, 2006 at 3:57 am

   Hi Cory...

   Does it not strike you as a little ironic that Microsoft have released this video about DRM and yet because of the way they have released (requiring IE and WMV) they have also restricted it's viewing somewhat (rather like DRM)!

   Cheers

   Jago (on an Intel Mac with no way to watch WMV)
2. Krimon says:

   July 13, 2006 at 8:25 am

   Windows IE: Now with extra irony!
3. Marcelo says:

   July 13, 2006 at 9:38 am

   Cory, Cory...

   Who needs IE?

   mms://media-wm.cac.washington.edu/msr/11476/asf/11476.asf
4. Ben says:

   July 14, 2006 at 3:02 am

   Fantastic talk Cory, but it raised a question in my mind... You (and I) hate DRM as it is employed today. Yet you admit to buying a lot of iTunes music. Doesn't Apple's proprietory DRM come with some deep grained DRM, leading to the holding back of iTunes rivals?

   Competition and a free market, as I understood from your talk, are the best driving forces for a healthy economy, so why no opinion on Apple locking out competitors? What happened to RealNetworks Harmony(IIRC), a stepping stone to removing the 'will this music play on my music player?' woes.

   Ben

   (PS For those on linux who can't stand unseekable, unpauseable streams, try this: 'mplayer mms://media-wm.cac.washington.edu/msr/11476/asf/11476.asf -dumpstream' - saves the stream as 'stream.dump' in the current directory.
5. Kyle Norwood says:

   July 14, 2006 at 3:00 pm

   Strong arguments! What do you think the chances are of microsoft doing what you describe?
6. Bob Babione says:

   July 15, 2006 at 3:54 am

   "... you need Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player to see it."

   Microsoft is making a point for you! ;-) But I still do not regret my Ubuntu box and I thank you for the transcript link.
7. Rob Joyce says:

   July 15, 2006 at 9:55 am

   Hi Cory,

   I am a person who has been converted to copyleft, in large part, by your arguments that I have read and listened to on boing boing and elsewhere. I watched the video of your presentation to Microsoft with amazement and excitement.

   Then I became frustrated when I was unable to capture the video from the propriatary microsoft browseware. Is there a way you could get a link to a downloadable version of this speech?
8. Nik says:

   July 23, 2006 at 5:45 am

   It would be nice to have seen the video, but nope not with media player. I switched back from firefox to view it and then I get the lovely error message that media player can't play it, which the lovely people at microsoft are yet to even get a reply back to me that doesn't say "reinstall media player". Alas the miracle of google video
9. epp_b says:

   July 23, 2006 at 7:26 pm

   Bob: You can run the stream directly in a stand-alone player. Kaffeine under VectorLinux works great for me: mms://media-wm.cac.washington.edu/msr/11476/asf/11476.asf

   Rob: You can also use Kaffeine to record the stream to an MPEG or something. For Windows, a program called "Fraps" may work.

   Kaffeine: http://kaffeine.sourceforge.net/
   Fraps: http://www.fraps.com/
10. Life on the road » NPR covers Technological Singularity says:

    July 23, 2006 at 9:09 pm

    [...] I’m a big Cory fan as of late. I subscribe to his podcast and have listened to many of the speeches he gives around the world. He is co-author of popular blog BoingBoing, ex-staff member of the EFF, and now writes science fiction full time (I recommend his book iRobot.)   [...]
11. theed says:

    July 26, 2006 at 9:05 am

    Hahahahaha. Years ago someone bought me Bill Gates's book "The Road Ahead. It was Bill Gates's vision of the future. It came with a multimedia CD. It only ran on Windows. I never found out what the content of the CD was, but learned enough from it not running that I lost interest in reading the book.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same.
12. Delicate Genius Blog » Blog Archive » Video of Doctorow DRM talk @ Microsoft says:

    August 6, 2006 at 5:37 pm

    [...] I’ve just learnt that Microsoft has released the video of the Cory Doctorow “DRM and MSFT: A Product No Customer Wants” talk that he gave at Microsoft over 2+ years ago. [...]
13. Bambi says:

    August 31, 2006 at 2:55 pm

    response to:

    ---snip---

    Bob: You can run the stream directly in a stand-alone player. Kaffeine under VectorLinux works great for me: mms://media-wm.cac.washington.edu/msr/11476/asf/11476.asf

    Rob: You can also use Kaffeine to record the stream to an MPEG or something. For Windows, a program called “Fraps” may work.

    Kaffeine: http://kaffeine.sourceforge.net/
    Fraps: http://www.fraps.com/

    ---snip---

    Thanks epp_b ... got to hear it using the link you shared.
14. chris says:

    September 18, 2007 at 11:44 pm

    Ive seen files like this most if not all WMV files or asf files deliver vis the MMS protocol are somewhat protected by cheap but effective DRM but i think you can use fraps to record it like cue it up in WMP then start fraps and hit record then play the vid, kinda like dubbing a tape to a cd or cd to tape or a video to a DVD

    yup the videos provided here are DRM protected
    google streaming WMV leaved dat file in temporary internet
15. Ex-eReader employee on the past and future of e-books | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home says:

    February 2, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    [...] DRM (during which he uses an analogy that he ascribes to “a guest speaker at Microsoft”—heh, it’s Cory Doctorow again!) and makes the point that the ubiquity of e-book DRM today may be directly traced to the lessons of [...]
16. Mike.lifeguard says:

    July 10, 2009 at 7:24 pm

    I'll be making an ogg vorbis/theora video of this tonight -- any chance you want to host it, Cory? I imagine you can see my email from this comment; feel free to email me. I'll also put it up on Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org), and I'll share the link here when I do.
17. Mike.lifeguard says:

    July 10, 2009 at 7:27 pm

    Just went to put the transcript up on Wikisource (http://en.wikisource.org) and it's already there! http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Microsoft_Research_DRM_talk
18. realtyru says:

    October 19, 2009 at 5:14 am

    Как говориться, сколько людей, столько мнений. Придержусь большинства, мне кажется они наиболее приемлимы для понимания
19. новостройки москвы says:

    June 9, 2010 at 10:21 pm

    It would be nice to have seen the video, but nope not with media player. I switched back from firefox to view it and then I get the lovely error message that media player can't play it, which the lovely people at microsoft are yet to even get a reply back to me that doesn't say "reinstall media player". Alas the miracle of google video

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