Windows Vista Content Protection

I'm a little behind the curve on Windows Vista, because I have no intention of installing it on any of my computers in the near future. Recently, I saw a link to this article [auckland.ac.nz], which goes into detail about how the content protection schemes in Vista work, and how they will affect users. Undoubtedly, many of you readers have already seen similar articles. What sets this article apart is the level of detail and how comprehensive it is. Having no experience with Vista and not being a software developer, I'm not sure that I have the best background to evaluate whether the author is being needlessly alarmist, though...

This paragraph should give you the gist of the article:

"Vista's content protection mechanism only allows protected content to be sent over interfaces that also have content-protection facilities built in. Currently the most common high-end audio output interface is S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format)... Since S/PDIF doesn't provide any content protection, Vista requires that it be disabled when playing protected content..."

Here's how Microsoft will enforce hardware manufacturers playing ball with their schemes:

"Once a weakness is found in a particular driver or device, that driver will have its signature revoked by Microsoft, which means that it will no longer be fed anything considered to be premium content. What this means is that a report of a compromise of a particular driver or device will cause all premium content-handling ability for that device worldwide to be turned off until a fix can be found. "