Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO of Sun Microsystems, has written a very insightful post about a conversation he had with the CTO of a “big media company”.

This CTO wanted Schwartz to support technology that would allow media companies to watermark digital media, and prevent thieves from stealing their content. This is the same technology that already attempts to prevent me from backing up my copies of Finding Nemo so my kids don’t break the original.

Schwartz turned the question back the CTO, asking if the CTO would support the same technology regarding the software running the big media company’s systems? He then writes up the response from the IT folks at the media company.

After a few days, I got a response. He’d spoken with their CIO, who dismissed the relevance of my proposal to manage all digital assets under the same scheme. “You’d have to start by proving I’ve stolen something.”

Exactly! Prove that I stole something before you start proactively preventing me. Why should I accept you crippling my system simply because there are thieves out there, who, by the way, cracked your scheme the day it was it released? Your DRM technologies are a headache for the honest, and hardly noticed by the thieves.

I knew I linked to that Schwartz guy for a reason.