Ready, Aye, Ready

Link: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/12/western-digital.html

This is an unusual one: Western Digital put out a NAS that actually filters out 20 file formats by their suffix as being copyright infringements.

The DRM is buried in software used by the product to make files available remotely (i.e. outside of a secure subnet.) Some discussion on BoingBoing suggests that the DRM is due to software's uses of a central server run by WD to act as a point of contact and as such they would open themselves to being the equivalent of an illegal Torrent or filesharing site. It's a weak argument but at least it resembles justification. While WD does acknowledge there are limits on the functionality of the unit on the website, apparently there's no such limitation on the real pacakging meaning the purchaser is getting a pig in a poke. Keep in mind that the limitations are arbitrary and conveniently cover only audio-visual types; one suspects the MPAA and RIAA had a hand in this one.

Anyway, I still recommend DLink's DNS-323 which is a far nicer solution, unemcumbered by insane DRM requirements. And that remote access functionality? The DLink's FTP functionality works like a charm.

(Via Pogge)