More than a quarter of a billion dollars. That’s how much Bill Gates’ people have lavished on tech related to Digital Rights Management. From an AP article:

“Microsoft Corp. has spent more than $250 million developing technology to control how users view or share copyrighted or sensitive material, and hopes to make computing more secure in the future, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said.

In an e-mail sent to 500,000 customers, suppliers and partners Wednesday evening, Ballmer laid out Microsoft’s case for developing technology in the touchy area of digital rights management…

Microsoft wants to lay the foundation for protecting digital content, said Ray Wagner, a research director with Gartner. It’s up to the film and music companies to choose how to deploy the technology and how restrictive it should be, with the marketplace as the judge, he said.

Oh, really? So Hollywood studios and Fortune 500 companies with a pile of dough can outspend consumers, and then everything will be ok, because the marketplace says so? Interesting way to make de facto public policy. Come on, Mr. Wagner. Didn’t you ever take Civics 101? Not to worry if you didn’t. Most of the members of Congress stayed away, too, thereby making them better values to campaign donors.

What’ll be interesting is the ratio between Microsoft’s DRM tech spending and the campaign contributions that it and Hollywood–mostly the latter–will use to make these outrages stick. Even massive campaign gifts are pretty small in the grand scheme of things. If Microsoft spent $250M to develop the tech, imagine how much Hollywood will cough up to buy and deploy DRM systems. Why let little details like fair use get in the way? Simply put, buying politicians is good business. Somehow we suspect that “secure computing” will mean plenty more security for the usual suspects at the expense of the public’s. But don’t count on help from politicians sleepy after a feast at Hollywood’s table.

Meanwhile, lest anyone be too smug about the evolution of the copyright law associated with the technology, check out a reminder from Larry Lessig of the sleazy tactics of the DRM fanatics in DC and abroad:

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