Vista locks down all the DRM functionality and actually reduces the quality of playback of some media. This includes both audio and video content.

As a company that creates music and video products, how can I use Vista to create, distribute and use legal media? I have read nothing to indicate that Vista has a model to allow 'authorized' use without causing problems.

Currently we use Windows 2000 and Linux products. If what we understand is true, Vista and future Microsoft products won't be viable options for us since prior to publication, media must be copied multiple times, edited, moved around, re-edited and often modified into various forms (trailers, etc.) before, during and after production. This naturally includes backups and recovery. If Vista is intent on prohibiting these uses, then Microsoft is intent on keeping their products out of the content creation and editing realm.

How do others deal with these issues?

Buncha Hooie... (Score:5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 15, @05:25AM (#8284936) As an Ex-Employee, I can say this: They are fully expecting to get shut down. Many of their internal business practices are "Profit before perfection" and it shows. They plan on getting as much buck as possible before any bad rulings shut them down. looking for the basis of XCopy? check out IfoEdit (freeware!!!). GamesXCopy? look for GameJack (gamejack.org) combined with Daemontools! Step 1: release barely-functional software. Step 2: Step 3: Profit! Nearly everything they have is un-original. Only the transcoder for re-compressing MPEG2 is original. Burning system? why, that is CopyToDVD. Reading? BlindRead, with CSS hacks. They claim that they are fighting for the users, but fire an AVERAGE of 30 people per month. This is from a total of around 180! Fellow Slashdotters, beware! This is NOT a company to feel sorry for. Instead, we need to rally behind the idea that open-source versions being legal. my 2-cents... btw: anon so that old friends don't get the boot too.

And for those without a VCR... (Score:1) by webhat (558203) on Friday November 14, @08:47PM (#7479418) (http://www.rphh.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday November 02, @08:02PM) ... akamai provides download links here http://a768.g.akamai.net/5/768/142/3f9e9589/1a1a1a fb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841 a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3 012c01_mp4_300.mov Where the first bold part is episode numbers 12-14 and the second the part numbers from 01-08. Between 20-26Mb each... -- 'I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds' [ Reply to This ] Re:And for those without a VCR... by AGTiny (Score:1) Friday November 14, @09:06PM Re:And for those without a VCR... by aelfwyne (Score:1) Friday November 14, @10:10PM