"The" reason the ME was added was enterprise remote management, as far as I'm aware. Of course, once you have a non-owner-controlled microprocessor on the syste

"The" reason the ME was added was enterprise remote management, as far as I'm aware. Of course, once you have a non-owner-controlled microprocessor on the system, you can use it to implement a lot of other value-add functionality that depends on not being owner-controlled. The article discusses the DRM aspect of it because this is one thing which would make it particularly legally difficult to allow owner control of the ME, since there are likely to be contractual obligations regarding keeping that secure. AFAIK, Intel isn't offering the anti-theft service anymore.