The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Microsoft gets digital pep talk

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Microsoft gets digital pep talk: "Should Microsoft dump its digital-rights management system?
Cory Doctorow, a London-based writer and outreach coordinator for the Electronic Freedom Foundation, gave a talk last week at Microsoft's research division proposing just that.
DRM systems, designed to prevent unauthorized use of music and other files, don't work and are bad for society, Doctorow said, according to a transcript of the speech he posted online. Microsoft's customers don't want their music locked on to computers, only to disappear when the hard drive crashes, he said.
Microsoft has stood up for its customers and for progress in the past, and it should do it again by making a music player that plays songs in any format, he said.
'This is a company that looks the world's roughest, toughest antitrust regulators in the eye and laughs,' he said. 'Compared to antitrust people, copyright lawmakers are pantywaists. You can take them with your arm behind your back.' "