Put it down as the first case where the machine showed more taste than the owner. People who wanted to record American Gladiators on their Vista-based Media Centers found that they couldn't: the rather blunt "I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that" message said that "restrictions set by the broadcaster and/or originator of the content prohibit recording of this program."
Now, you could hope that it was because either the network or the makers of the program realised the error of their ways - Lycra? Giant cotton buds? - but instead it turned out to be due to the "broadcast flag" - an anti-copying mechanism that Vista (in particular) listens out for. Somehow, it had gotten set to "don't allow recording". NBC and Microsoft said they are "looking into" what happened. People at the DVR user site The Green Button aren't pleased.
Owners of TiVo and DirecTV PVRs had no problems, which meant it was the lucky souls using Vista Media Center who had the problems.
It's a bitter reminder of the fact that DRM is not perfect, but has the power to really mess up your day. That comes up in today's lead story in the Technology Guardian supplement, How Apple is changing DRM, where the example (mentioned here before) of MSN Music shutting down, and other problems with the fact that Windows Media Player in Vista won't let you back up licences for music.
