Western Digital accuses all hard drive users of being pirates, refuses to allow media files to be shared!

Published on December 7th, 2007

Posted by SN in General

BoingBoing – December 6, 2007:

“This is the most extreme example I’ve seen yet of tech companies crippling data devices in order to please Hollywood: Western Digital is disabling sharing of any avi, divx, mp3, mpeg, and many other files on its network connected devices; due to unverifiable media license authentication’. Just wondering — who needs a 1 Terabyte network-connected hard drive that is prohibited from serving most media files? Perhaps somebody with 220 million pages of .txt files they need to share?”

A complete list of unauthorized files can be found here. Western Digital claims they have to block such files from being shared “due to unverifiable media license authentication.” To put it in human-speak: Those files might be copyrighted, and for some reason, Western Digital has set itself up as the copyright judge, jury, and executioner of your hard drive and data!

Slashdot points out that there are ways around this. Sure. There always are. But that’s not the point. The point is that hard drive manufacturers should never make any assumptions about my data. It’s my hard drive and it’s my data and I should always be allowed to access it.

33 users responded in " Western Digital accuses all hard drive users of being pirates, refuses to allow media files to be shared! "

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# 1 AusiMik said, on December 7th, 2007 at 3:45 am

I am shopping for a large drive for Xmas. I guess my choice has been made a little easier!

# 2 Petrov said, on December 7th, 2007 at 3:54 am

#1 Exactly!

If my hard drive doesn’t save files, they are getting it back and I expect a full refund. If they put a disclaimer on the box (as if) saying that certain filetypes won’t be saved they can forget selling any hard drive to me.

# 3 ECA said, on December 7th, 2007 at 4:01 am

REAd the print…
ITS A SHARING SERVICE, from WD…

anyone for a MAJOR lawsuit??

# 4 ECA said, on December 7th, 2007 at 4:02 am

Can you see trying to distribute an Internet Podcast with this running??
WON’T HAPPEN.

# 5 Eric Susch said, on December 7th, 2007 at 4:06 am

I’m sure I already have terabytes of Western Digital drives here in my High Definition post-production suite. They make good drives. Oh well. I guess it’s Seagate all the way for the end of the year, get it in before the tax year ends, purchases.

PS I want that table!

# 6 richardbt71 said, on December 7th, 2007 at 4:31 am

So, I can’t store videos that I made, I being the sole copyright holder, and view it on any machine on my network?

# 7 Liam said, on December 7th, 2007 at 4:40 am

They’ll back down eventually when their sales figures go through the floor.

#6 – correct

# 8 Uncle Ben said, on December 7th, 2007 at 5:01 am

If they are really serious about tackling piracy, what WD really needs to do is simply make all their hard-drives read-only…. because really, any file could potentially contain copyrighted information on it….

# 9 bb said, on December 7th, 2007 at 5:08 am

#8 – Don’t you mean “Write-only”?

# 10 OhForTheLoveOf said, on December 7th, 2007 at 5:19 am

#9 – NO… Read only makes more sense. If it were write only, you might be able to save copywrited material. As a read only device, there’s no chance you can get anything off of it since you can’t put anything on it.

# 11 jlm said, on December 7th, 2007 at 5:23 am

Western Digital sucks anyway, just another reason to avoid them

# 12 Storm said, on December 7th, 2007 at 5:47 am

Are they stupid!

# 13 gquaglia said, on December 7th, 2007 at 6:14 am

If anyone doesn’t think the consumer can’t influence this, just look at M$ latest back step with Vista and the “kill switch” If enough people bitch and the product tanks, this “feature” will disappear faster then 3 lines on Lindsey Lohan’s coke mirror.

# 14 Eric said, on December 7th, 2007 at 6:14 am

I work in the film/TV biz doing editing, After Effects, etc. We trade .avi, .mp3, .aif, .mov, .wma and .vob (we do dvd authoring). We use lower performance drives all the time for backup or transfer of files.

I think it is SHOCKING they do this. The MPAA/RIAA has won: We are now guilty of piracy until proven innocent! Even us in the biz?????????

# 15 Paul said, on December 7th, 2007 at 6:20 am

It’s an optional feature which, as far as I understand, isn’t particularly useful anyway (requiring 3rd party involvement I think)

It’s not a big deal in of itself however it does seem to foreshadow a slippery slope that we are heading down.

# 16 Phillep said, on December 7th, 2007 at 6:23 am

Eric, you are guilty unless proven innocent, and court is in session 12:00 to 12:01, Feb 31 of each year.

# 17 Awake said, on December 7th, 2007 at 6:54 am

Western Digital has a file-sharing piece of software that allows you to remotely access the drive from the Internet. Basically an add-on for people that are too ignorant to make the drive visible on their own. It can be run as a ‘public’ share or accessed privately.

It’s the file sharing software that won’t share media ‘publicly’… the hard drive itself has no restrictions, and knows nothing about it’s connection to the world.

# 18 AslansTraveller said, on December 7th, 2007 at 7:29 am

Well, I was looking at the MyBook Studio Pro, but guess I’ll be looking elsewhere. I’m definitely dropping them a note about the sale they just lost.

# 19 Mister Kitty Litter said, on December 7th, 2007 at 7:29 am

Rename the file, this is how you get them through firewalls as well. You can easily change the file extent to something meaningful like .WDS – short for Western Digital Sucks.

# 20 KagatoAMV said, on December 7th, 2007 at 7:47 am

Another reason to buy Seagate

# 21 music said, on December 7th, 2007 at 8:08 am

I create music files (usually mp3) all the time of my own original work. I also make video files (avi, mpeg) of original work. Are they going to restrict my sharing of my own original work?

# 22 Eric said, on December 7th, 2007 at 9:06 am

Devil’s Advocate position here.

I’m not focusing on the individual private computers here; I’m talking about networks for small businesses. Sure, we could just bring the hammer down on the employees and do things the hard way, but we’re trying to treat our employees with respect and trust, while at the same time protecting ourselves.

As an IT manager for a small network of users this is a good thing. The users here think they know better than I about the impact in both CPU cycles and time of sharing pirated copies of works the RIAA is cracking down on. These users constantly put the company itself at risk of litigation because of their lack of knowledge about the RIAA and file sharing. It’s a constant PR battle within the walls of the company.

The employees need access to the different drives on the network to get the job done. This need exposes the company to a list of potential problems by those who don’t understand the risks involved.

They quickly forget, or flat out don’t care that the owner of the drives are not the employees, but rather, the company and they ones exposed to potential litigation are not the employees, but the company itself.

Programs that do this have been previously available, but at cost prohibitive prices.

Bottom line, there is a segment of the marketplace that will welcome this with open arms as protection for them.

Then again, if it weren’t for the Gestapo tactics of organizations such as the RIAA, none of us would have to worry about this sort of thing in the first place.

# 23 Eric said, on December 7th, 2007 at 9:07 am

[Duplicate comment. - Deleted. - ed.]

# 24 Angel H. Wong said, on December 7th, 2007 at 9:16 am

Methinks that Western is justr trying to be preemptive considering that sooner or later the MPAA and RIAA is going to sue HD manufacturers and/or convince Congress to charge a hefty piracy levy tax for the HD.

# 25 framitz said, on December 7th, 2007 at 9:38 am

The post is INACCURATE and inflammatory. Local network sharing is unaffected. It is the MIOnet component that is the problem. Nobody in their right mind would run the MIOnet crap anyway.

So.

This is a NON-ISSUE.

Seagate? I don’t think so, never,ever. Any company that charges me to replace defective product under warranty never get’s another chance for my business.

# 26 Yaaar! said, on December 7th, 2007 at 10:13 am

“WD accuses all hard drive users of being pirates…”

A lie. A contemptible blob of horked mendacity. Bovine effluent designed to attract attention with no consideration for others.

Yes, a particular WD appliance restricts shares based on file type. Yes, that is an unwarranted restriction based on a ludicrous assumption. So don’t buy the product.

Will you be unable to run uTorrent on your PC with a WD drive? Of course not. That’s what Comcast is for.

We’re all a little prickly about Corporate Morons enforcing the will of the Content Mafia, but at least try to pretend to present of image of fairness. There’s no need to make Digg and /. look good.

# 27 EdgyDude said, on December 7th, 2007 at 11:37 am

anyone else hear that sound? it’s the sound of millions of persons sending WD’s products going straight to hell, i think the most benefited out of this ordeal will be WD’s competitors that will soon find themselves with an overflow of customers once the people get ahold of this news.

# 28 phiend said, on December 7th, 2007 at 12:32 pm

this county is f**ked up

# 29 GetSmart said, on December 7th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

Wasted Digital has been on my avoid list for years now anyway.

WD TV commercial starring DeForest Kelly –
“It’s DEAD, Jim!”

# 30 seminiferous said, on December 7th, 2007 at 2:58 pm

These hdd makers have made a bundle off of piracy. People need a place to store all that stolen stuff and the RAIA and MPAA know it. I doubt the MPAA or RAIA threatened them with anything but that some farsighted attorney in WD internal legal dept. saw the risk.
This is such a stupid business move no company could possibly make it w/o the help of their attorney’s telling them they’re going to get sued. This hurts their reputation and provides them w/ no revenue. To make your business moves based on what someone in legal thinks might limit liability is a terrible way to do business.

# 31 Terry said, on December 10th, 2007 at 1:55 pm

Jesus Christ! This technology even prevents open source Ogg Vorbis files from being shared! Outrageous! What is the point of having such a drive if these kinds of files cannot be accessed by any other computer on the network? Local access only really limits its usefulness. I predict WD will kill this “Anywhere Access” idea as soon as consumers figure out the name is a blatant lie.

# 32 Alpha said, on March 4th, 2008 at 5:52 am

I was just looking at purchasing a new Hard Drive – For the past 15+ years I used only WD drives for me and all my clients, and they worked great – guess it is time to look into other options.

If you have stock in this company now is the time to sell -

# 33 Lenin said, on September 5th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

WD HAS TO BE THE MOST IRRESPONSIBLE COMPANY EVER TO PUT OUT A PRODUCT. I’M KEEPING THIS SHORT. I BOUGHT AN EXTERNAL DRIVE FROM WD AND STORED ALL MY PICTURES AND VIDEOS ON THERE THEN FOUR MONTHS DOWN THE LINE IT FAILS AND I END UP LOSING ALL MY PICS AND VIDS. NOT EVEN A RECOVERING AGENCY WAS ABLE TO RETAIN MY DATA. I CALLED WD AND THEY REPLACED IT WITH A NEWER VERSION AFTER I THREATEN THEM TO SPREAD THE WORD. THEY SEND ME ANOTHER ONE AND COME TO FIND OUT, IT FAILS TO RUN AFTER 2 WEEKS!!! THEY HAS GARBAGE PRODUCTS. I HAVE HAD A SEAGATE EXTERNAL FOR ALMOST 5 YEARS NOW AND IT’S STILL GOING AND GOING AND GOING. MY ADVISE…..DON’T BUY A WESTERN DIGITAL DRIVE UNLESS YOU DON’T MIND LOSING YOUR DATA.

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