Hey, kids-- it's time for this week's example of what kind of zany anticompetitive stunts you can pull once a five-year-long tussle with the Justice Department leads to nothing more than a slap on the wrist. (Actually, we may be stretching the definition of the word "slap" a little thin, since the settlement was more like a "gentle massage with aromatic oils" on the wrist, but somehow that just doesn't really roll off the tongue.) Earlier today, a trained chimp reached into the Hat of 1,001 Shady Antitrustish Things Happening in Redmond, grabbed a slip at random, sealed the result in an envelope, and locked it in a safe that has since been guarded closely under the watchful eye of a PricewaterhouseCoopers representative. At least, he said he was from PricewaterhouseCoopers, although for some reason he was wearing a tutu and carrying a large frozen mackerel. "For security reasons," he said.

Anyway, the envelope has just been delivered to us by our fish-toting ballerina-dude, and we are now ready to announce this week's winner. The latest Zany Anticompetitive Stunt is...

(...These envelopes are always so hard to open...)

...Digital Rights Management in Microsoft Office documents! Everyone, please, a hearty round of applause for DRM in Office docs! We could've sworn Marisa Tomei would've won, but hey, them's the breaks.

So here's the deal: according to CNET, Office 2003 (working in conjunction with Windows Server 2003) will allow users to specify exactly what other people will be able to do with a given Word or Excel document. You could, for example, prevent your boss from reading your detailed plans to run amok through the company's halls with a large frozen mackerel. You could ensure that no one could copy and paste an excerpt from your 120-page manifesto on Freedom Through Fish-Swinging and pass it off as his own. And we're not positive about the extent to which Microsoft's DRM can control usage of Office documents, but we're pretty sure you could even guarantee that no one could print it out, fry it up, and eat it, either.

Frankly, this actually all sounds pretty good to us. There's clearly a use for a means whereby people who create content can restrict who is allowed to look at, alter, print, reuse, or ingest said content. There's just one "purely accidental" little side-effect to Microsoft's implementation that qualifies as a Zany Anticompetitive Stunt: apparently DRMed Office 2003 documents will be unreadable by anything other than Office 2003-- well, except for Internet Explorer with a plug-in they're working on. But OpenOffice will be out of luck, as will Panther's version of TextEdit, which reportedly opens Word documents just fine-- at least, ones that aren't DRMed in Office 2003. And given the way the wind's blowing with Microsoft development of Mac software, we're a little skeptical that Office 2003 DRM support will be coming to Mac Office anytime soon.

Now, Microsoft insists that DRM is a long way from becoming a default setting in Office; for the time being, companies will actually have to set up Windows Server 2003 and Windows Rights Management Services to use it, and so it'll probably be a while before DRMed Word files are commonplace enough to cause most people any trouble. But at the same time, Microsoft has made it clear that it's got a "wide-ranging plan to make restricted access to information a standard part of business processes." Eventually this may well nuke any and all competing products as woefully incompatible. Quick, somebody call the Justice Department! Oh... right...