Microsoft decided to jump in the content-industry bandwagon for "every hardware device must be protected" because it's good for their business. Sure, we can find all kinds of conspiracy theories and secret cabals out to protect the allmighty buck, but it's still a legimate use for encryption. Or is encryption only good when it's used by brave open source individualists against bad and corrupt corporate suits?

If you don't like devices that disallow use of competing products then don't buy them. If Word documents can't be opened in Staroffice then don't save them in Word format. It's the same thing as with CDs/DVDs crippled by copyright control schemes - if people refuse to buy these inferior products, they will go away.

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