Western Digital Service Restricts Use of Network Drives

sehlat writes "Via BoingBoing comes the news that Western Digital's My Book(TM) World Edition(TM) II, sold with promises of internet-accessible drive space, is now restricting the types of files the drive will serve up. 'Western Digital is disabling sharing of any avi, divx, mp3, mpeg, and many other files on its network connected devices; due to unverifiable media license authentication. Just wondering -- who needs a 1 Terabyte network-connected hard drive that is prohibited from serving most media files? Perhaps somebody with 220 million pages of .txt files they need to share?'" Update: 12/07 03:28 GMT by Z : To clarify, it actually seems as though this is a bad summary. The MioNET service that WD packages with the networked drives is responsible for the rights of users via the network. There are a few (obvious) ways to get around that.

In Soviet America....

[Endloser]

file types restrict you.

This makes a lot of sense.

[moogied]

Western Digital understands the primary use of the drive to be media sharing. As such, they cripple that option in order to maximize drive life time and make sure its REAL primary use is back ups. I for one thank our Access-Restring Overlords..

^Satire.

In Soviet Russia

[ueltradiscount]

government host your files for free +)

Re:So rename your files and go on about your busin

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

You should check out some of my .txt files

Metallica_Enter_Sandman.txt is a great "read"

Customers?

[markov_chain]

We don't need no steenkin' customers!

Re:"The Ironside"

[Ironsides]

I object to that. I am not a cripple.

From the manufacturer's product page:

[harmonica]

My Book(TM) World Edition(TM) [wdc.com]

What it holds:
Up to 285,000 digital photos
Up to 250,000 songs (MP3)
Up to 25,000 songs (uncompressed CD quality)
Up to 76 hours of Digital Video (DV)
Up to 400 hours of DVD quality video
Up to 100 hours of HD video

Re:More like...

[gEvil (beta)]

I can't wait to hear about all the noobs out there complaining about their "crashed" computers because they tried to open a 700MB file in NotePad... : p

Ah, Time for the Tinfoil Hats?

[tjstork]

I think its because advanced aliens are against file sharing. If we don't have good copyrights, then the planet will be vaporized, as advanced civilizations basically sell travel books to each other. Piracy threatens the Galactic economy. You do know that the original Cylon - Human dispute was over DRM?

False advertising?

[AusIV]

From the site:

Use This Product When You Want To
* Securely access and edit your files on any computer.
* Get files from home while at the office.
* Listen to the music on your My Book World Edition drive while you're on vacation.
* Securely share photos with your friends anywhere in the world without uploading them to the web.
* Back up your laptop data to your home computer while you're traveling.
* Offer your clients an easy way to access business documents, designs, and artwork. Eliminates the need for a separate FTP server.
* Back up critical files to a remote drive for the ultimate protection from loss.
* Simplify your home network and access data from any computer or external hard drive in the house.
* Automatically back up all your PCs to one central location.
* Gain peace of mind with a mirrored back up of important documents and images.

What It Holds:
Up to 571,000 digital photos
Up to 500,000 songs (MP3)
Up to 50,000 songs (uncompressed CD quality)
Up to 100 hours of Digital Video (DV)
Up to 800 hours of DVD quality video
Up to 200 hours of HD video

Now, granted these limitations only extend to "Anywhere Access", so you could still presumably use the device on a local network or plugged in to a specific machine, but it seems like blatant false advertising to say that you could listen to your music while on vacation when it doesn't let you use that service on the vast majority of music files.

What about .NFO?

[base3]

Do those trigger the self-destruct feature or something? Who in the hell do they think they are?

Re:A Sign of Things to Come and How to Fight.

[Torvaun]

Give him a break, at least he didn't use a '$' even once.

220 million pages of txt?

[dakameleon]

That means nothing to me! How many Libraries of Congress, please - a relevant unit of measure if there ever was one.

Re:I wouldn't. This is as stupid as it gets.

[Torvaun]

Hey, I didn't see Ogg Vorbis on the list. I demand Linux equality!

Doesn' scale

[SuperKendall]

Or, just set associations so .REM files open with Media Player Classic.

Oh sure that works great for "Shiny Happy People".REM. But then you need "Sunday, Bloody Sunday".U2 and so on - imagine the size of the file association list! :-)

Re:Dvix? Oog?

[Vadim the Conqueror]

But....but.....i need to share my oog files! how else can i communicate with the cave people?

Re:A Sign of Things to Come and How to Fight.

[evanbd]

Exactly. There are much better [faqs.org] technologies available for that purpose. I'm sure we can find a way to adapt this technology from network communications to file systems.

Re:A Sign of Things to Come and How to Fight.

[mrv20]

LOL. Now you'll never know whether it was your point or the "Microsoft eats babies" remark that got you your insightful mod.

Re:"The Ironside"

[couchslug]

They aren't "crippled", they are "functionally challenged".

Re:A Sign of Things to Come and How to Fight.

[mOdQuArK!]

That's GNU/Stallman, you insensitive clod.

Re:Why bother?

[Moodie-1]

it might as well be 512 MiB

I dunno. I sure wouldn't want 512 men-in-black hounding me .