Now that I have your attention with the title, I was once again surprised, but not shocked to read the article relating to DRM restrictions built into Windows Vista. Ars Technica has a story detailing the issues end users were experiencing with recording their favorite television programs. The issue is being investigated by NBC and Microsoft, and from what it looks like, it seems someone “accidentally” fell on a switch that prohibited VISTA MCE users to record American Gladiator & Medium.

You know, if you have listened to our podcasts or watched the show,  where I stand on DRM better known as (digital restrictions management) and this article is just fuel for the fire for open source software. Or at the least, non-DRM platforms.

The not so computer savy general market is getting ripped off. They are paying for hardware, operating systems and content delivery, which is controlled by a third party on the way it will work and when, even if by accident. Tivo, and regular DVR users were not impacted by this as it was isolated to only VISTA MCE users. So if anything you get from this is to acknowledge the fact that Big Businesses (cough-Microsoft) in content delivery are not trying to find ways to best serve their customers, but looking out for their own interest even at the expense of your entertainment and product satisfaction.

Here is a screenshot of an EPIC FAIL

-josh