SlashNOT

Matthew writes: A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed their plans to completely bungle the debut of their forthcoming Palladium Digital Rights Management technology in 2004.

“We feel really good about the press surrounding the Hailstorm initiative and how that scared people, and the way that we got so many people who didn’t really want Passport accounts (which turned out to be totally insecure) to sign up anyway because they couldn’t access MSN, Hotmail, or Microsoft.com downloads without it. With two years to go until Palladium, we can plan to blow this one big time.”
Click More. “Firstly, we’re not going to tell any end-users why they would want Palladium or even explain what Digital Rights Management means. We’re going to make sure that they know that it’s our right and the rights of entertainment publishers that we’re managing, not their rights. We’re just going to make sure they know that it will let us prevent them from sharing (or even installing) our software and eliminate their ability to download music or movies from the Internet without paying. Oh yeah, and we’ll make sure that they know they’re paying extra to help us manage our rights.”

“Secondly, we’re going to completely ignore the complaints of those privacy advocates, grassrootsy rights types, and foreign governments while we lobby to get heavy handed legislation passed to make sure that only Microsoft or other “approved” operating system that include our Palladium DRM software will be legal. They can say whatever they want, because nobody ever pays attention to them.”

“Thirdly, we’re certainly not going to warn Intel what’s in store for them when everyone realizes that their Palladium enabled microprocessors won’t run Linux, BSD, or any other non-commercial operating systems that contain unsigned code. We’re just going to laugh as they back-pedal like bunch of circus clowns on a bicycle that’s been set on fire. Man, I can’t wait so see that!”