It seems Western Digital has decided for themselves what type of files we are allowed to put on our hard drives. This is a twisted tale. It started with this post on BoingBoing, then grew from there. Here is a list of the types of files it restricts access to. It is huge.
Though this is an ongoing story, I have a hard time believing a hard drive company could be so stupid as to do this to customers. We shall have to see. Other companies could follow. If that happens, this is a disaster for our freedom of use of our machines.
Jack
UPDATE; Now it appears Seagate is selling drives that are natively incompatible with Linux and Macs without a workaround being instituted. I smell a monopoly at work here and I am not happy about it.
Jack
That stench is DRM in hardware. I have been expecting it for some time now.
ReplyDeleteQuote from the WDC answer :
"Due to unverifiable media license authentication, the following file types cannot be shared by different users using WD Anywhere Access."
An additional note, the limits are on SHARING the files with other users, not with STORING the files for your own account. Comments on linked articles indicate that packaging and promotion of the drives in question are not clear about this feature.
ReplyDelete