An article by Elizabeth Montalbano for IDG News Service is not a "DRM" issue as we discuss it as it does not involve any digital locks on eithor content or devices, but a software patent issue. In this case a valuable software technique is being patented by Microsoft, and thus will be unavailable to FLOSS developers. I am a proponent of watermarking content as a way to more easily monitor content distribution (useful for collective licensing schemes, etc), and it is unfortunate whenever any of the practical uses of this math is made unavailable to FLOSS by a deeply flawed patent system.
Note: applying watermarking to content is a positive use of a technical measure to protect the interests of copyright holders, while locking down hardware against the interest of its owner to mandate watermark detection is an offensive use of a technical measure. Hopefully bureaucrats and politicians will eventually be able to tell the difference between uses of TPMs which protect legitimate rights, and those which circumvent legitimate rights.
