Exclusive: Western Digital sets the record straight on DRM fiasco
- December 11th, 2007
- 7 Comments
I just got off the phone with Western Digital’s Director of Marketing for MioNet, Brian Miller, and I picked his brain about some of the DRM backlash going around.
Sometime last week The Reg was breaking news that Western Digital’s My Book storage drives were crippling the transfer of media files over the network. Of course, you can still transfer photos and documents, but, yes, you cannot transfer music or movie files. We can all point the finger at WD and say, “that’s messed up and I don’t like you anymore”. But that is neither necessary or relevant to the situation. You see, the problem, if you want to call it that, lies within the third party software, MioNet. The physical drives themselves are not at fault.
It’s all still being sorted out and you can’t expect a relatively new player for this arena to allow users to steal music and videos. If it’s copyrighted then leave it at that. Just burn it to a CD/DVD and inter-office it. Or bring an external and do it directly from the source. Ya dig? At least WD listened to customers needs about wanting to share photos and documents. Give them some time and let them work out the software before you go chastising them. Their hardware is solid.
Bushibot (Who am I?)
11 months ago
WTF? Who made the software is totally fucking irrelevant, western digital packaged and sold it. They took your phone call so now everything is cool? Fuck that. It is not western digital or anyone else’s business what or how I choose ti expose, share or manipulate my data. If I am violating copy right in some way then that is a issue solely between me and the IP owner because it is in fact a private matter unless there is some proof of DRM circumvention. WD? Your dead to me. Crunchgear? Man the fuck up.
Peter Ha (Who am I?)
11 months ago
Whoa, hey, Bushibot. I agree with you. We should be able to do whatever we want with our media as we please, but you can’t blame a company for following the rules, can you? And I never said it what they were doing was ok. I’m simply clarifying the situation and making the distinction that it’s software and not hardware. That’s it.
Cody B (Who am I?)
11 months ago
You thought the hardware was stopping it? No shit the software is blocking it.
“At least WD listened to customers’ needs about wanting to share photos and documents.” Is that a joke? So I bought this disk space so I can use it as a paper weight. It’s not like NAS space is used to centrally store data so multiple people can use it or anything.
They are working to fix the issue? Cut out stupid code, recompile, distribute to users. Done
I hope you got at least a few drives for writing this.
diem (Who am I?)
11 months ago
Peter–I am frankly surprised at your tone of this piece. It is not up to the hardware manufacturers to tell us what we can and cannot do with our data. I am very sad to see what you write here…and as for “rules”, that’s a cop out. WD is no more responsible for *your* data than a bullet manufacturer is guilty of murder — they are not the same thing.
Confused (Who am I?)
11 months ago
Quick question Peter - is this only crippling web based transfers, or also internal home network transfers?
So if I have all of my home videos on one of these drives will I be able to access those files from within the home network and just not be able to share it with the outside interwebs?
Clarification would be awesome,
thanks
Peter Ha (Who am I?)
11 months ago
Let’s say we clarify a few things.
@Cody
No, I did not think it was hardware. That would be stupid. But everything floating around this situation does not clearly state where the problem lies, which is MioNet. That’s not to say that WD isn’t at fault, either. Oh, and I totally got every single product in the lineup. Heh.
@diem
I suppose my mindset to rush out of the office to grab a few beers clouded my judgment and I apologize for the tone. Looking over it it does come off a bit odd. I obviously agree that it’s not up to WD how I handle my media, but it should be looked at from a business side as well. Like I said before, I’m not condoning or agreeing with anything. I’m just trying to look at it from an objective standpoint. It’s obvious that the consumers are going to be pissed and rightfully so.
@Confused
I’ll get back to you on that one.
John (Who am I?)
11 months ago
Dude,
Your stock options are not going to go up based on this write-up.