The Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted a story that says Adobe Pushes DRM for Flash, and obviously they're against it. The story says:
Now Adobe, which controls Flash and Flash Video, is trying to change that with the introduction of DRM restrictions in version 9 of its Flash Player and version 3 of its Flash Media Server software. Instead of an ordinary web download, these programs can use a proprietary, secret Adobe protocol to talk to each other, encrypting the communication and locking out non-Adobe software players and video tools. We imagine that Adobe has no illusions that this will stop copyright infringement -- any more than dozens of other DRM systems have done so -- but the introduction of encryption does give Adobe and its customers a powerful new legal weapon against competitors and ordinary users through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The DMCA bans tools that help "circumvent" any DRM system (as well as the act of circumvention) so this could stop people remixing them. Indeed, the EFF says: "Even if users aren't targeted directly, technology developers may be threatened and the technologies the users need driven underground."
Of course, we also know that Microsoft is busy putting DRM into Silverlight, which will enable companies that stream unprotected Flash to stream protected Silverlight (standard SMPTE 421M, aka VC-1, aka WMV9) instead. If Adobe does nothing, that should give Silverlight a competitive advantage for broadcasters, and even the rentagob crowd might not be able to shout it down. So I reckon that DRM is something Adobe has to do, whether it likes it or not.
I'll try to ask them about this, but the time difference to California means it's best done later....
