File Sharing Blocked on Western Digital Storage Devices

sea2stars · Post by **sea2stars** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:09 pm

File Sharing Blocked on Western Digital Storage Devices

Western Digital Service Restricts Use of Network Drives

What kind of issues is this going to create for the average user? Is WD nuts? Of course there're ways around this, but for the average user is WD just creating their own tech support nightmare?

jbw · Post by **jbw** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:24 pm

And isn't most illegal filesharing done with rar files anyway?

So the funny thing is that this is more of a problem for users who, while not exactly legitimate owners of the material, are only trying to access their personal media library and not share it with the world.

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:57 pm

While I disagree with this sort of thing, it really only affects those who cannot run the software client that comes with the drive. For 90-99% of most users, and lets face it - this product is targeted at home users wanting to access files from multiple machines on a home network, this will not be a problem as it doesn't filter anything that moves between the drive and the provided client software.

It really is however not WD's place to play internet police, and the excuse that they don't want to be caught in a cross fire between MPIAA/RIAA is specious at best.

They just increased sales of Seagate, Samsung, Fujitsu, etc.

seraphyn · Post by **seraphyn** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 6:06 pm

NyteOwl wrote:It really is however not WD's place to play internet police, and the excuse that they don't want to be caught in a cross fire between MPIAA/RIAA is specious at best.

They just increased sales of Seagate, Samsung, Fujitsu, etc.

Indeed. Seems a clear case of shooting them selfs in the foot here.

Such an odd thing to do, especially when the carriers of the illegally obtained data have never been accused (as far as i know, barring 'the internet' of course) of having any responsibility about what they're used for.

taken from slashdot:

In Soviet America.. file types restrict you.

Funny and true in this case

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 4:01 pm

NyteOwl wrote:While I disagree with this sort of thing, it really only affects those who cannot run the software client that comes with the drive.

They just increased sales of Seagate, Samsung, Fujitsu, etc.

There's an article on the BBC website now, and although it mentions the software client halfway down the page, if you didn't know better you could get the impression that *all* new WD drives are affected at a hardware level.

This shows all the signs of being a complete PR disaster for WD, and serve them damn well right too.

Das_Saunamies · Post by **Das_Saunamies** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:02 pm

Just further proof the "War on Piracy"(as some aptly call it) has seriously spun out of control. People should just relax and stop flying into a frenzy about it, the corporations will survive. They always do.

Meanwhile, artists have already found ways to cope and use the internet for their own benefit, as have game developers.