Anti-piracy in Windows

It’s a ways off, but Microsoft’s next version of Windows will have strong anti-video piracy safeguards, CNET reports. See the article for details, but “PCs won’t be the only ones with reinforced pirate-proofing. Other new consumer electronics devices will have to play by a similar set of rules in order to play back the studios’ most valuable content,” CNET paraphrases Microsoft as saying. The reason CNET cites? “Microsoft believes it has to make nice with the entertainment industry if the PC is going to form the center of new digital home networks, which could allow such new features as streaming high-definition movies around the home.” So it may be that, by late 2006 – when “Vista,” the next version of the Windows operating system is expected to ship on new PCs – the era of media companies suing file-sharers will be over. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) last week filed lawsuits against 286 US file-sharers “for the first time using peer-to-peer companies’ [P2P sites shut down earlier in the year] own data to track down individuals accused of trading movies online,” CNET reports. “Most of those sites were hubs connecting people using the BitTorrent technology.” The Los Angeles Times editorializes that, “as an educational tool, this type of lawsuit leaves something to be desired.”