from Wired.com

Western Digital’s 1TB MyBook external hard drives won’t share media files over network connections (UPDATE: Don’t install the “required” client software! See workaround below). From the product page:

“Due to unverifiable media license authentication, the most common
audio and video file types cannot be shared with different users using
WD Anywhere Access.”

It doesn’t matter what the files are: If you try to share these formats over a network, Western Digital assumes not just that you’re a criminal, but that it is its job to police users. You see, MP3, DivX, AVI, WMV and Quicktime files are copy-protected formats.

The list of banned filetypes includes more than thirty extensions. Some of them are bizarre: .IT files are banned — these are Amiga-style music modules composed with Impulse Tracker,
a particularly well-loved tracking sequencer that hasn’t been updated
in almost a decade. I composed with IT myself, back in the day, and
still have all my shitty compositions, none of which Western Digital would have me share. (Try MOD vs. Speak&Spell
masterpiece Eddie Dreams of Women, if you dare: IT, MP3)

Isn’t it cute how the only data it views as worthy of
policing are music and movies? These are the only copyrights that matter under corporate monkey law.

It’s the most astonishing example of crippled equipment I’ve ever
seen. A DRM’d hard drive! Whatever next?
Dreaming meat?

UPDATE: The manual’s appendix and online support site provide setup instructions for SAMBA, allowing access over IP instead of with the DRM-infested and poorly-reviewed client app, elsewhere claimed to be “required.”