Standards and specs: Digital rights management: When a standard isn't

Standards and specs: Digital rights management: When a standard isn't: "Whether you're a buyer or a seller of a product, the essential goal of standardization is to make interoperability possible, allowing communication with anyone else using the same protocol and media. In some cases though, vendors have specific reasons for not being compatible -- and those vendors have developed a standard for incompatibility, digital rights management (DRM). The goal of DRM is to limit compatibility because things which are compatible can be copied and distributed freely. In this installment, Peter Seebach looks at a potential oxymoron -- standards designed to subvert and prevent interoperability."