Western Digital drive is DRM-crippled for your safety

One happy customer!

Hello, my name is Vlad P., and I orchestrate zee free exchange of pictures, video, and audio files by our esteemed media, and international elections monitors, in MY country. Like you at Eastern Digital, my mission is to be sure to allow everyone to think that I facilitate the freedom of zee movement of digital media, while not actually allowing that at all (hahaha!). Your product has proven most efficient in achieving zee mission.

You would have been as please as me, I am sure, to see zee expression on zee stoopid faces of zee reporters of lies when zey first attempted to share zee lies with their fellow traitors, and the spies of zee West. For your hard drives, fifty-thousand rubbles, for zee look on zee faces, priceless!

I will be sure to recommend most highly your product to my friends in other freedom-loving countries. It is a shame dat comrade George may not have time to push zees through congress, especially since he vould have zee questions about lawful (hahaha) interception.

Copyrights

So Word documents and PDF files are all public domain are they? I guess writers and publishers aren't as important as record labels and film studios.

J

@David Simpson

David - you mis-understand.

"the owner can access any file from anywhere - it just can't be used to make your record and dvd collection available to the world"

The sharing software stops me sharing ANY mp3. You, like WD and the RIAAA, have automatically assumed that ANY mp3/avi (etc) file is illegal. There are lots of people out there with mp3/avi files that are perfectly legal to share - this device is designed, specifically, to stop people sharing files that is is perfectly legal to do so.

Western Digital can go play with themselves

Wellll....... I'm not buying another WD product ever again. I CREAT MY OWN DIGITAL MEDIA with programs like, Audacity, Cinema 4D, Carrara 5Pro, etc. I really don't need a corporation building anything that will interfere with my use of my own creator-made content.

So to Western Digital all I have to say is go play with yourselves. I don't use Vista and now I don't use WD either.

What the fuck?!

I buy hard drives all the time mostly on price. From now on I won't buy a single WD drive EVER and should I ever be asked why I spent x number of pence more on another one I'll explain that WD drives are now DRM crippled and stop you from playing your own files on your own computer. I'm going to tell everyone about this!!

grrrrr

"There are lots of people out there with mp3/avi files that are perfectly legal to share - this device is designed, specifically, to stop people sharing files that is is perfectly legal to do so."

That being the entire point. My copious collection of mp3s is not music - in fact, I think I have three tracks on this drive (all validly licensed). Yep, sad indeed. These mp3s - and other assorted formats -- are recordings of lectures, research meetings, etc. - all here for a legitimate reason and sometimes need to be shared (again perfectly lawfully).

Send it back to its maker. In a box.

Common Carrier Irrelevant

Chronos-

Common Carrier Law is the consumers concern, not WD's. WD does not provide Data Transport Services, they provide data transport tools. A consumer who uses WD's drive may be responsible to common carrier if they provide a public service, but WD is more analagous to a boat manufacturer.

Boat manufacturers are NOT liable for what their boats eventually end up transporting.

Until now, I liked Western Digital Drives. Seagate is looking more and more like it's worth the slightly higher prices.

THE ANSWER TO THIS ISSUE!!

It is NOT the hardware doing DRM.

REPEAT - IT IS ***NOT*** THE HARDWARE!!

It is WD's AccessAnywhere software.

THE ANSWER TO THIS ISSUE IS SIMPLY NETWORK MAP THE MyBOOK TO A DRIVE LETTER IN WINDOWS.

See here:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1531&p_created=1176311730&p_sid=LJ-IGzSi&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=1495&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MzYzLDM2MyZwX3Byb2RzPTIwOSZwX2NhdHM9MCZwX3B2PTEuMjA5JnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfZm5sJnBfcGFnZT0y&p_li=&p_topview=1

Once you do this ALL file types are available to the network from the drive.

WD's simply could not get around the DRM issues. Sound familiar, Vista?? >:-/

Horrible

Anyone casually researching the product would never suspect these hidden limitations!

Some companies want to make it illegal to share your content. My uncle ended up in a situation where he couldn't legally make copies of his own wedding video.

He 100% owned the video, but it was CSS protected so he had to use an illegal tool to copy it.

Don't ask me who it ended up with as an encrypted DVD, probably some video editing program decided that all DVDs have to be encrypted just in case the person using the software doesn't have all the legal rights.

---

BTW I repair computers and my experiences with WD have always been good, last I checked they offered a free (credit card secured but ultimately free) advance replacement option. They ship the replacement ASAP and you can sen the defective unit back in the same box. (you just pay return shipping)

Seagate on the other hand charges $26 for advance replacement or forces you to buy a $16 RMA kit (won't accept bubblewrapping).

Not a good option when your drive is defective but has readable data, or when you are in a hurry (who isn't).

So I will continue to buy WD's hard drives, but I won't be buying any of their networked hard drives now or in the future.

I have two, no problems !!

I have two of them and the first thing I did was to do a low-level format and give them a Windows drive letter. I share things and have no problems. Take that WD !! It is my stuff and I can share it with whom I please.

What a man can do, a man can un-do.

What is the problem here?

Clearly WD are saying this:

"If you want to share your illegal ripped DVD collection with the outside world, fine, just don't do it on our web service, ta."

Can't blame them, really...

This is easy

I own one of these drives (500GB version)

Try going to this URL: http://martin.hinner.info/mybook/

There you will find instructions on opening up the sshd on the MyBook World Edition drives. From there, you have access to a normal, ARM-based Linux distribution, whereby you can install anything you want. Mine's running Squid and a caching DNS server, as well as being a sharing point for media and does MRTG graphing for all the SNMP devices on my network.

It's a 266mhz ARM cpu with 32 meg RAM, and does a very nice job of standalone services.

Personally I think it's a brilliant product, who gives a toss about the inbuilt Mionet rubbish?

are people unable to read....

You know it always surprises me that people just type comments and think later….

The device in question does not deny YOU access to anything you store on it, it just stops you sharing the most common media files with other accounts.

The way the device works is that you set up a user login, this then gives you access to storage space. Space you can store and retrieve anything from, anywhere in the world. You can flag folders for share so that other users of the device can access the shared content.

The restriction only comes into effect if a user is accessing the device from outside of the LAN, and then they will not have access to the restricted file types.

And as for the poor upload performance, this again is only to the WAN. As most users do not have a upload speed above 1mbit it will only affect corporate users and I assume corporate users will prefer to use a proper VPN.

The original article should make it more clear on the workings of the device, and readers should also do a little more research into a product than a poorly written article on El Reg.

I presume WD incorporated the restrictions so that the device would not be purchased by thousands of ‘knock off Nigel’s’ and become the device of choice of the minions with hooks and parrots. I don’t suppose WD want to be associated with or be identified with that sort of behavior. That to me is more believable than them getting undisclosed amounts of money in envelopes, from a guy in a trench coat and panama hat, who knows the correct response to the phrase ‘the black dog barks at the red moon at midnight’....... or from the RIAA

@Jeremy

>> Clearly WD are saying this:

>>"If you want to share your illegal ripped DVD collection with the outside world, fine, just don't do it on our web service, ta."

No, they're not. What they're saying is

"If you want to share your music or video collection with the outside world, our product is not going to let you, EVEN IF YOU OWN THE I.P. RIGHTS."

It's not their job to police what I do with a mass storage device, any more than it's my local car dealer's job to install a speed governor to prevent me breaking the speed limit in my new car.

Yes I can read

I hate DRM, XRML etc. without restriction. I do not have a parrot or hook. However, when I buy something, I own it, whatever company parasites aka known as lawyers write down. When I cannot use something I bought and want to use for whatever novel purpose I think of, the product goes back and/or there will be hell to pay. Companies writng DRM in their products have to be very careful that customers using this for their own purposes really do not notice DRM in any way. At the most they should be notified when they inadvertently break some kind of law - which most customers do not have time for anyway.

Western digit terminated

Western digit terminated their own sales to me for capitulation to MS dreams of conquest long ago.

As a pure Linux (Debian) user I moved off of the clunky and hobbled drives produced by WD some years past.

This is just par for the course by this manufacturer.

I do find it interesting that the work arounds are considered normal by some users.

I think that it should not be necessary for people to buy a new product and "fix it" out of the box.

Save the world, use Linux, watch your backside and don't buy into dumb products that reinforce the notion of a police state having any chance of survival in the information age.

Heh.

Apparently, FLAC and MKV are okay. Maybe they're pushing for better quality ripping standards...

@ Anonymous Coward

"If you want to share your music or video collection with the outside world, our product is not going to let you, EVEN IF YOU OWN THE I.P. RIGHTS."

No, no, no, no no. You're all missing the bloody point. What they are restricting is the 'Mionet' web service not the god-damn hardware.

The secret is to bang the rocks together, guys!

@Do It Yourself

Well, it is a well known fact that you're better off building your own NAS kit. You save a hundred bucks or so and you clearly know what goes into the box. Plus, many kits out there can actually do FTP, HTTP, NFS and Appletalk apart from SMB (and don't even need any proprietary software to use it!), so you could use it for more than a NAS.

@Chronos

There is no LEGAL excuse (beside been force by a criminal organisation such as the MPAA/RIAA) to cripple a product to the point that is become 100% useless. It was design to PERMIT you access your files from anywhere. This is false advertizing, deceptive marketing and illegal crippling.

The totally illegal move from WD should (lets hope) result in the company bankrupt and closure. So other drive manufacturers will not be tempted to take such criminal action agains they onwn consumers.

Boycott don't (saddly) work, but i have not buy or use and Sony product since they infected millions of computer with rootkit (using music CD), i never buy any product that contain DRM that cannot be easly remove (what is the point of buying a crippled product that is useless when the "free" version is superior in everyway way). and will never ever use any western digital product anymore.

Company need to learn the consumer is always right. But some openly criminal cartels and companies seem to think that STEALING and SUEING they own consumers is a viable business model: Sony, WD, Macrovision and of course the most dangerous criminal organisation in the world today: MPAA/RIAA

@BitTwister

Happy to help.

Try googling for mybook world edition hacking, and there's loads of forums and precompiled software (and somebody is working on a version of FreeBSD's Ports collection for it), but so long as you're comfortable compiling/installing libraries and software and your requirements aren't massively CPU intensive, it'll do most anything you want.

@Jeremy

"No, no, no, no no. You're all missing the bloody point. What they are restricting is the 'Mionet' web service not the god-damn hardware."

No - you are missing the point.

WD sell this product as a PnP share drive - including the line about accessing your music when you are on holiday.

The Software is, as you say, the problem. WD ship the software with the hardware. Thus the whole bundle which is a WD product is defective. So it is WD's fault - they could have picked someone else's software .

c'mon El Reg...

Can we please update the story here? As far as I can tell, only one user at a time can access these 'locked' media files. You may or may not be happy with that, but it's a pretty important distinction vs. 'you can't access these remotely'.

I have seen loads of 'I'm no longer a WD customer' on the basis of a flawed story.

In most countries, that would open you up to legal action by WD...

WD have crossed a dangerous line here

The day that a disk maker decides what data you can and cannot access or store on your drive is a sad day indeed. I'll be shouting and screaming to anyone that will listen to avoid buying Western Digital products, and as hardware procurement is a duty of mine at an IT firm of 40 people I'll certainly be doing my bit.

I'd be very interested to hear WD's take on this. It won't however effect my WD boycott/badmouthing campaign against them.

@Marty

You said it all: the drive is configured not to allow anonymous access outside the local LAN. What kind of chump allows unauthenticated access to files from outside their LAN anyway? Anyway this wasn't a technical decision by WD it's a legal decision. They don't want to be sued for supplying a device that can be so easily used for bootlegging.

Please stop the straw-man arguments -- your thinly disguised excuses for piracy are risible and an embarrassment.

@Edwin

Give up, old son. These people will believe what they want to believe, regardless of little things like "facts" to the contrary. Slashdot ran an almost identical (and identically wrong) summary of this non-issue

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/06/2119240

and got the same sort of responses, although at least they had the good sense to admit to the terrible summary in an update. They've now started on Seagate (who own Maxtor, who in turn borged Quantum in the late mesozoic era)

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/09/0651200

because their external drives go into standby mode after 15 minutes and are formatted NTFS (which, as any fule no, is a simple method of bypassing FAT32's 4GB file size limit, which limitation could be construed by the idiocracy to be infringing their rights to copy DVDs as the ISO files won't fit) and upset the OSen of the world [1] that can't handle a disappearing block device without barfing all over the desk. One wonders how difficult formatting a disk EXT3/Reiser and disabling standby with sdparm really is.

Let 'em carry on. Eventually they'll be stuck buying Excelstors (smirk) and Hitachi Deathstars (fnarr). I'd set up a data recovery outfit in preparation for this eventuality, but I fear I couldn't afford to carry the punch cards ;-)

[1] Before anyone starts, I USE, as my primary OS, one of said OSen. ALL software sucks. It just sucks orders of magnitude less than Redmondware on the Lovelace scale, especially if you know how to use it properly.

Looks like I brought the right product then

I recently purchased a Lacie Etherdisk Mini, which doesn't need a separate client to work on windows, just standard network drive mappings and holds and shares mp3, wma and avi without any problems and transfer speeds are good too, it supports 1000mb jumbo frames for streaming media. It is far faster and more reliable than the £50 NAS cases you can buy (I have two of those as well) and comes in 500mb, 750mb and 1TB versions. Perfect for the home or soho network file store.

jesus there's a lot of knee-jerking going on here

It seems like most people who've commented here are just dying to jump on the bandwagon with all the other armchair revolutionaries out there.

Look, WD is saying: Here's a hard drive. Use it however you want. It also has some hardware built in to make it useful as a server, a way for you to access stuff on your drive when you're away from home. We've also included some software to help you do that sort of thing, and we'll let you use this "mionet" setup if you want. That's what most 'home users' would want it for -- log in from work to grab an mp3 from home, or the like. Now, if you want to turn one of these things into a server that distributes media content (to your friends, or your customers, or whatever -- whether it's legally yours or not) then you'll want to use something other than "mionet" to do it. It's not designed for that, and we really don't want the hassle of having to defend ourselves against charges of enabling a sort of p2p network for anonymous file-sharing. Share all you want, just don't use our service to do it. We don't care if it's legal content you're sharing or not -- it's not really designed as a commercial content server, either, or anything other than a convenience to the user in being able to access his files when away from home."

That doesn't seem like they're trying to "dictate" anything other than what sort of content they want to run over their service. *shrug* Which is fine. You can use whatever sort of server software you want to on the thing, if that's what you want to do.

i dunno...

...they seem pretty good to me, after having read frankgobbo's pages on what you _can_ do with them, i think they look pretty damn good.

"I think that it should not be necessary for people to buy a new product and "fix it" out of the box."

yeah, me too but if there's a shit-hot fix that can improve a prduct that much, it would affect my decision to buy it in the first place.

Returns Numbers?

Id like to see the returns numbers on this box after a couple of month of sales. Something tells me they will be a lot higher than other HDDs of similar type.

When are vendors going to realise that consumers wont stand for this kind of crap?