Rich Fiscus
12 Dec 2007 23:18
Last week Western Digital came under fire from a number of technology news sites for their Anywhere Access software, which is designed to allow users of the company's backup and Web sharing storage device, the My Book World Edition, to share files over the internet. The problem for many users is that it won't share most common multimedia formats.
The issue was first brought to light last week when a post on BoingBoing called the company's decision to control sharing of such files "the most extreme example I've seen yet of tech companies crippling data devices in order to please Hollywood." Despite the rhetoric, the author makes an excellent point when he asks "who needs a 1 Terabyte network-connected hard drive that is prohibited from serving most media files?"
According to reports the answer to this question from Western Digital boils down to claims of ignorance about what users might want to do with the device, and concerns about protecting copyright holders' rights. As the bad PR from this move mounted last week, Western Digital went on the offiensive - sort of, with Director of Marketing Brian Miller talking to some tech writers hoping to put a positive face on the situation.
"The company has started out very conservatively in creating a certain set of features and functions," he 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."
It's understandable that so many people are questioning Western Digital's honesty in this matter since few people have need for such a large device for any reason except sharing media files, and aside from something like CD or DVD images there isn't much call to share non-multimedia files from such a device. As far as protecting others' IP rights, Western Digital has no legal responsibility to worry about the copyright of files being shared by individuals who buy their products or liability for any civil or criminal violations those customers engage in while using their hardware.
On the other hand they do have a responsibility to ensure that the products they sell work as advertised, which arguably includes making sure that customers are aware of limitations like this one that few people would assume for a device designed to share files, which to many people automatically conjures images of multimedia files and little or nothing else.
Sources:
BoingBoing
Computerworld 1, 2
InformationWeek