[Infowarrior] - Vista's Fine Print Raises Red Flags

[Richard Forno]

Vista's Fine Print Raises Red Flags
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1640/159/
Monday January 29, 2007

Appeared in the Toronto Star on January 29, 2007 as Vista's Legal Fine Print
Raises Red Flags

Vista, the latest version of Microsoft's Windows operating system, makes its
long awaited consumer debut tomorrow.  The first major upgrade in five
years, Vista incorporates a new, sleek look and features a wide array of new
functionality such as better search tools and stronger security.  The early
reviews have tended to damn the upgrade with faint praise, however,
characterizing it as the best, most secure version of Windows, yet one that
contains few, if any, revolutionary features.

While those reviews have focused chiefly on Vista's new functionality, for
the past few months the legal and technical communities have dug into
Vista's "fine print."  Those communities have raised red flags about Vista's
legal terms and conditions as well as the technical limitations that have
been incorporated into the software at the insistence of the motion picture
industry.

The net effect of these concerns may constitute the real Vista revolution as
they point to an unprecedented loss of consumer control over their own
personal computers.  In the name of shielding consumers from computer
viruses and protecting copyright owners from potential infringement, Vista
seemingly wrestles control of the "user experience" from the user.

Vista's legal fine print includes extensive provisions granting Microsoft
the right to regularly check the legitimacy of the software and holds the
prospect of deleting certain programs without the user's knowledge.  During
the installation process, users "activate" Vista by associating it with a
particular computer or device and transmitting certain hardware information
directly to Microsoft.

Even after installation, the legal agreement grants Microsoft the right to
revalidate the software or to require users to reactivate it should they
make changes to their computer components.  In addition, it sets significant
limits on the ability to copy or transfer the software, prohibiting anything
more than a single backup copy and setting strict limits on transferring the
software to different devices or users.

Vista also incorporates Windows Defender, an anti-virus program that
actively scans computers for "spyware, adware, and other potentially
unwanted software." The agreement does not define any of these terms,
leaving it to Microsoft to determine what constitutes unwanted software.
Once operational, the agreement warns that Windows Defender will, by
default, automatically remove software rated "high" or "severe,"even though
that may result in other software ceasing to work or mistakenly result in
the removal of software that is not unwanted.

For greater certainty, the terms and conditions remove any doubt about who
is in control by providing that "this agreement only gives you some rights
to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights."  For those users
frustrated by the software's limitations, Microsoft cautions that "you may
not work around any technical limitations in the software."

Those technical limitations have proven to be even more controversial than
the legal ones.  Last December, Peter Guttman, a computer scientist at the
University of Auckland in New Zealand released a paper called "A Cost
Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection."  The paper pieced together
the technical fine print behind Vista, unraveling numerous limitations in
the new software seemingly installed at the direct request of Hollywood
interests.

Guttman focused primarily on the restrictions associated with the ability to
playback high-definition content from the next-generation DVDs such as
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD (referred to as "premium content").  He noted that Vista
intentionally degrades the picture quality of premium content when played on
most computer monitors.

Guttman's research suggests that consumers will pay more for less with
poorer picture quality yet higher costs since Microsoft needed to obtain
licenses from third parties in order to access the technology that protects
premium content (those license fees were presumably incorporated into
Vista's price).  Moreover, he calculated that the technological controls
would require considerable consumption of computing power with the system
conducting 30 checks each second to ensure that there are no attacks on the
security of the premium content.

Microsoft responded to Guttman's paper earlier this month, maintaining that
content owners demanded the premium content restrictions.  According to
Microsoft, "if the policies[associated with the premium content] required
protections that Windows Vista couldn't support, then the content would not
be able to play at all on Windows Vista PCs." While that may be true, left
unsaid is Microsoft's ability to demand a better deal on behalf of its
enormous user base or the prospect that users could opt-out of the technical
controls.

When Microsoft introduced Windows 95 more than a decade ago, it adopted the
Rolling Stones "Start Me Up" as its theme song. As millions of consumers
contemplate the company's latest upgrade, the legal and technological
restrictions may leave them singing "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law
at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at
mgeist at uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.