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Adobe messes with Flash DRM
SOFTWARE HOUSE Adobe has been tinkering with the digital restrictions management (DRM) for its Flash software.
Dubbed Flash Access 2.0, the changes will mean that content providers can control what types of output devices can display the content.
According to the Adobe blog, it is enabling HDCP and broadcast control flags for Flash content.
The move is designed to assure the big media content cartels that they can use Flash Access to reach the widest possible audiences without worrying about illegal copying of their copyrighted works.
With a new SDK, it can also be integrated with secure downloads or HTTP dynamic streaming. This should be familiar to those who have followed the Apple versus Adobe controversy, as it is basically just Apple's proposed HTTP Live Streaming standard with an XML-based manifest file. So far the only outfit that has tested this is Adobe itself.
While Adobe plans to bring support to all platforms, currently the output controls are only available on Windows. It apparently can stop a user from connecting their PC to a projector or other external display.
It is either very brave or quite foolish of Adobe to do this. In the midst of a row with Apple, in which most of the US trade press will print whatever Steve Jobs says without question, it seems daft to miff users by implementing some of the worst aspects of DRM.
The upside is that if the music and film industries think it is a good idea they might decide it is not worth trying to support Apple and its problematic vision of a world of media controlled entirely by Steve Jobs. µ
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I already have a hearty dislike for Flash in most places where I see it, but if, on top of its ubiquitous nuisance capability, it had DRM, then I'm decidedly against Adobe from now on.
I will never accept any artificial limitation to what I can do with my PC and the data on it be imposed on me by a third party (that has no right to set foot in my house without my permission) just because they have the technological ability to do so.
"In the midst of a row with Apple, in which most of the US trade press will print whatever Steve Jobs says without question, it seems daft to miff users by implementing some of the worst aspects of DRM."
It appears it's not limited to the US trade press, eh? Sometimes the Inq has articles up on what Jobs is dreaming of, let alone every random e-mail he says.