Will Windows Vista hand power to mainstream media?

There’s talk of a deal between Microsoft and mainstream content providers over the material that becomes available for Windows Vista.

It seems that analysts at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in San Francisco, believe that Vista may be a highly restrictive sandbox, where only the major movie studios call the shots.

Says Andy Patrizio of Technology Review : “What’s certain is that the new content protections in Vista have been designed in cooperation with media companies such as Disney and 20th Century Fox ~ a first for Microsoft.”

Microsoft’s Marcus Matthias, Product Manager for Microsoft’s Windows Digital Media Division says : “We’re trying to offer a platform that understands the concerns of a lot of stakeholders to protect the content. If it can’t be protected, there is no incentive to make content available.”