Western Digital external Drives now come with copyright protection ?

[Modelworks]

This is getting out of hand.
When I cannot buy an external hard drive without being told what I can and cannot do with it, they have gone too far.
I will not buy any WD product as long as they continue to do this with any product.


edit: One of the offending devices -http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136196

http://www.informationweek.com...ml?articleID=204702710

External storage units have become popular for transferring electronic media between PCs and other networked devices, but stories surfacing Friday suggest some devices made by Western Digital put the brakes on sharing of the most common audio and video files.
The restriction is embedded in the Anywhere Access software within the My Book World Edition, a 1Tbyte storage device made by Western Digital that provides a backup for Windows PCs, as well as the ability to access files remotely from another computer via a Web browser. The company installed the software in its consumer and small business network-attached storage device to prevent unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content.

While registered users of the software can access any file remotely, files of common audio and video formats, such as AVI, MP3, MPEG and DivX, cannot be shared. Western Digital on Friday said remote sharing of files from one of its storage devices is new to the company, so Western Digital chose to stay clear of any capabilities that could be seen as challenging the rights of copyright holders. Unauthorized use of audio and video on the Web has become a major problem with Hollywood studios and record companies on one side and Web sites, such as Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s YouTube, on the other.

"The company has started out very conservatively in creating a certain set of features and functions," Brian Miller, director of marketing for Western Digital, told InformationWeek. "As we go forward, the goal is to listen to what the marketplace needs and wants, and identify the most appropriate solution that respects intellectual property."

 

[Legendary]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
This is getting out of hand.
When I cannot buy an external hard drive without being told what I can and cannot do with it, they have gone too far.
I will not buy any WD product as long as they continue to do this with any product.

http://www.informationweek.com...ml?articleID=204702710

"...the goal is to listen to what the marketplace needs and wants..."

:laugh::roll:

 

[Juno]

internal hard drives + external enclosures FTW?

 

[jjones]

This is nice. Assume the consumer is guilty. Oh well, WD need not worry about my sharing, as I won'r be sharing any of my hard earned money with them. Also, I love how they say they are starting out conservatively; I'm pretty sure they meant to say draconian.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

What.The.Fuck?

I'd like to cram a hard-drive with 1TB of :thumbsdown: icons and send it to them.

 

[sciencewhiz]

The restriction has nothing to do with the drive itself, but with the software that western digital provides for sharing over the internet. You can store anything on the drive you want, then physically take the drive to another computer, plug it in, and copy any type of files you want. In that sense, it works exactly the same as a normal hard drive in an enclosure.

If you choose to use their file sharing software, you can share any file type within your own network, but certain media types are restricted from being shared over the internet. If you use your own software, there is no such restriction, exactly the same as a normal hard drive in an enclosure.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: sciencewhiz
The restriction has nothing to do with the drive itself, but with the software that western digital provides for sharing over the internet. You can store anything on the drive you want, then physically take the drive to another computer, plug it in, and copy any type of files you want. In that sense, it works exactly the same as a normal hard drive in an enclosure.

If you choose to use their file sharing software, you can share any file type within your own network, but certain media types are restricted from being shared over the internet. If you use your own software, there is no such restriction, exactly the same as a normal hard drive in an enclosure.

regardless, just the fact they did this is very annoying and ridiculous. Most consumers won't know to use their own software anyway.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: sciencewhiz
The restriction has nothing to do with the drive itself, but with the software that western digital provides for sharing over the internet. You can store anything on the drive you want, then physically take the drive to another computer, plug it in, and copy any type of files you want. In that sense, it works exactly the same as a normal hard drive in an enclosure.

If you choose to use their file sharing software, you can share any file type within your own network, but certain media types are restricted from being shared over the internet. If you use your own software, there is no such restriction, exactly the same as a normal hard drive in an enclosure.

But its not a normal external drive.
Its being marketed as network storage with its internal software for accessing the content stored.
There are work arounds to add ftp support and share what you want, but there should not have to be:
http://mybookworld.wikidot.com...icks-mybook#post-68104

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: sciencewhiz
The restriction has nothing to do with the drive itself, but with the software that western digital provides for sharing over the internet. You can store anything on the drive you want, then physically take the drive to another computer, plug it in, and copy any type of files you want. In that sense, it works exactly the same as a normal hard drive in an enclosure.

If you choose to use their file sharing software, you can share any file type within your own network, but certain media types are restricted from being shared over the internet. If you use your own software, there is no such restriction, exactly the same as a normal hard drive in an enclosure.

Exactly. This is just something that stupid people worry about.

 

[Bateluer]

Thats BS, that fact that they even have the software installed is BS.

How is the software installed though? If buy the drive and format it, is it gone, or has it been embedded somehow?

Incidentally, we should all go leave negative reviews on the offending drives at Newegg, though it looks like that drive is getting poor reviews on its own.

 

[Elderly Newt]

rename the files to .somethingelse, rename to .mp3 upon successful transfer?

 

[bignateyk]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Thats BS, that fact that they even have the software installed is BS.

How is the software installed though? If buy the drive and format it, is it gone, or has it been embedded somehow?

Incidentally, we should all go leave negative reviews on the offending drives at Newegg, though it looks like that drive is getting poor reviews on its own.

I really don't see the big deal here. Its a piece of software that you can choose to use or not use. You can use the harddrive just like any other external drive... Frankly, I don't blame them for doing it. They added a new capability to their drive, and put some limitations on it. It still functions the same as any other external drive would.

 

[potato28]

Never really liked their drives anyway, so now more reason to stick with Seagate!

 

[Throckmorton]

They're just scared of the MIAA and RIAA like we are... Unlike Sony they aren't a MEMBER.

 

[Modelworks]

I think the problem here is that they are marketing it as a networked drive that can be shared over the internet.
You cannot just format the drive. That would 'brick' it.
The drive contains the operating code, its not all in firmware.

The host os on the drive is linux based.
In that there are services running mionet, the file sharing software.
http://mionet.com/

The whole point of the drive is to have network storage that can be shared without a host pc or addittional software.

The fact that WD could upgrade the firmware in the future to block certain file types is I think what concerns me the most.

This seems like a 'testing the waters' type of thing.

They promote just how great it is at sharing without the need of a ftp server, and put the restriction in an *

I'm surprised they didn't put jpg , bmp, gif on the list


http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=340

WD Anywhere Access? - This storage system and all the files on it are always accessible when you need them, even when your local computer is turned off.*

If these file types are on a share on the WD My Book World Edition system and another user accesses the share, these file will not be displayed for sharing. Any other file types can be shared using WD Anywhere Access.

File Extension File Description
AAC Advanced Audio Coding
AIF Audio Interchange File
AIFC Audio Interchange File
AIFF Audio Interchange File Format
AMF DSMIA/Asylum Module File
ASF Advanced Streaming Format
ASX Advanced Stream Redirector
AVI Audio Video Interleave
CDA CD Audio
DVI DivX AVI
DIVX DivX AVI
FAR Farandoyle Tracker Music Module
IT Impulse Tracker
ITZ Impulse Tracker
KAR Karaoke MIDI
MDZ Cubic Player/Cross-View Music Module Description
MOV QuickTime Video
MP1 MPEG Layer 1 (Audio)
MP2 MPEG Layer 2 (Audio)
MP3 MPEG Layer 3 (Audio)
MP4 MPEG Layer 4 (Video)
MPA MPEG Audio Stream, Layer I, II or III
MPE MPEG Video
MPEG MPEG Video
MPG MPEG Video
MPGA MPEG Layer 3 (Audio Stream)
MPV2 MPEG Audio Stream, Layer II
OGG OGG Bitstream
OKT Oktalyzer Tracker Module
PTM PTM - Poly Tracker Module (Audio)
QT QuickTime Video
QT1 QuickTime Video
VOB Video Object (DVD Video)
VOC Creative Labs Sound
WM Windows Media Audio or Video
WMA Windows Media Audio
WMV Windows Media Video

 

[Throckmorton]

Wow, so you just can't use the drive for those file types?

 

[Modelworks]

Those are the file types you cannot use if you wish to share files with the builtin software.

You could use your own and have your pc do the sharing, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having the builtin software.
You could also alter the software using linux, but really how many consumers are that computer literate.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

i do not approve of this action by WD. how dumb of them~!

i shall not buy wd until further notice!

 

[arnav]

Come on guys, all u have to do to get rid of the software is to re-format the drive. I know you shouldn't have to, but WD is being a bitch about it, so we "bitch slap" them back.

If any of u have bought the Sandisk McCruzer Flash Drives before, you know there is a crappy software on the drive called U3. It is supposed to be for better usability of the drive, but all it does is it just takes more space. All u have to do there is just uninstall it and you are set.

And if you are really worried about this stupid thing so much, just go out and buy your hard drives right now. Get like 20 TB -- Go Crazy --

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: arnav
Come on guys, all u have to do to get rid of the software is to re-format the drive. I know you shouldn't have to, but WD is being a bitch about it, so we "bitch slap" them back.

You cannot just format the drive.
Its running linux on the drive to support the hardware the drive uses.
This is not like a drive in an external enclosure.
Its more like a small pc that connects to your network for storage.

 

[JackMDS]

Thread like this usually start with ignorance, get hot with words, and then No one wants to admit the mistake and back off from the unnecessary release of "Emotional Verbal Terms".

This device is Not an External Hard Drive; it is a Network Access Storage Device (NAS).

Entry Level NAS' are problematic and do not worth buying them.

In this sense it is Not any different than any of the Sub $500 units that are out there.

In general it is much better for such a price to use an old computer with old lic. of Win2000, or if one really wants nice NAS, and much more, install Windows Home Server on an 1GHz and above computer.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...ght_key=y&keyword1=whs

P.S. The Device has to be connected to a Network Switch (usually a Cable/DSL Router's port), it has USB port. This port is to connect an addtitional External Drive (in enclosure) to get more space, it can not connect to a Computer's USB port.

 

[taltamir]

pfft, this is nothing. Want to try out this computer game? Use this DEMO, now with complementary COPY PROTECTION so that you cannot share the demo with your friends...

Last time I looked companies BEGGED me to share demos with my friends. it said so in the demo itself. I would play the demo and at the end it will say "thank you so much for trying out demo, we hoped you liked it and would be interested at buying the complete version found here <location>. Please share this with your family and friends."

Nowadays they have demos that come with securom7 that installs a driver and then verifies you have the original demo CD in the drive to allow you to play.


Anyways this isn't an external hard drive. Its a network attached storage device... aka a mini computer with an OS that shares a drive over Ethernet. It also has some WD software that shares files over the internet, and that one has the copy protection part so that they aren't sued by the RIAA MPAA and other EPAA companies (Enemies of the People Association of America.)

 

[Roguestar]

Easy solution: .rar or .zip your files and share them without WD's restrictions.

Bit of a heavy-handed approach on their part, though. It's easy to have a legit .avi file with no copy protection (camcorder, digital camera, anyone?).

 

[arnav]

Originally posted by: Roguestar
Easy solution: .rar or .zip your files and share them without WD's restrictions.

Bit of a heavy-handed approach on their part, though. It's easy to have a legit .avi file with no copy protection (camcorder, digital camera, anyone?).

good point dude.:thumbsup: