My name is Ren Bucholz and I currently live in Toronto, Ontario. More info on me and my work is
available here.
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May 20, 2003
The Lessons of Sucky DRM
One of our co-testifiers at the Copyright Office hearings mentioned this incident:
When Intuit launched the copy-control program, it predicted that revenue would increase, since customers who had previously purchased only one TurboTax program would have to buy a separate copy for each computer in the house. That assumption was dead wrong. Instead, the move triggered a consumer backlash the likes of which Intuit had never seen.Intuit later made amends and promised not to use the feature in any future releases. The gentleman on the panel claimed that it was evidence that the content protection industry (he works for Macrovision) is adapting, and we shouldn't be concerned about the current crop of "Oops! We engineered your rights away" DRM. I'll talk about this some more once the transcripts are out.
More coverage on the hearings here. I disagree with some of Victor's interpretations but he seemed like a nice guy.
.:link:.

