Why we've lost control of our own hardware

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By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 18 Jan 2008 at 10:05

"A decision to block MP3 transfers may be a commercial one, though," he adds. "For example, a drive maker may think that some businesses will be attracted to a drive that blocks MP3 transfers to control their own employees' activities."

There are other motives for hardware manufacturers' insistence on applying DRM - sometimes they won't be licensed to make, say, DVDs if they don't comply. Other times it's purely commercial.

The iPod legacy

While there's a profit to be made from institutionalising the hardware - such as with Apple's iPods - manufacturers have no incentive to promote interoperability. "The technology is actually there already for interoperability among DRM systems," claims Brian Lakamp, president of Fluxe, a start-up working to develop a neutral platform where consumers' content could reside independent of particular DRM systems.

"The problem is that everyone who has the power to enable interoperable DRM has looked at what Apple did and is chasing its taillights, trying to create a proprietary relationship with consumers."

For as long as our digital devices continue to connect to the internet and DRM remains commonplace, we'll have to concede that the manufacturers have more control over certain hardware than we do.