Slashdot Mirror
DMCA bad for Apple Users
Aguazul writes "TidBITS has published a really strong article on the DMCA and on how this is bad for Apple users, with some good links and suggestions for action. The author, Adam Engst, is regularly voted the most influential person in the Mac world outside of Apple, so this is a serious wake-up call to Apple users everywhere."
Another buddy was being driven to frustration trying to edit digital video on his PC. So, my Mac friend hauls his Mac over, and they go out and buy iDVD.
Turns out that Apple has put a firmware check in the software. When you launch it, iDVD checks for an Apple DVD player, and if it doesn't find one, doesn't load.
"Ah!" My friend says, "I'll just buy a DVD burner...I wanted one anyway!"
But Apple won't sell you a bare drive. If you want a DVD burner, you have to buy a whole new Mac.
An enterprising man made software that would sit between iDVD and a 'regular' DVD burner, and make iDVD think it was an Apple drive. Apple threatened him under the DMCA, and got him to remove his software from the market.
Well, considering how DMCA is bad for everyone, I can't really see it as a surprise that you would come to the conclusion that it is bad for Apple users as well. ${x | x \mathrm{is an Apple user}} \in P(everyone)$
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
You know, the DMCA and DRM are two quite different beasts, and you don't have to agree with one to agree to the other.
I have severe issues with the current incarnation of the DMCA. It's broken, it can go after that most sancrosanct of creatures, the software engineer, and it gives ridiculously strong legal protections. It's also way to abusable for things that it wasn't intended to cover, like MS using it to keep (non content-related) protocols closed. Having the government, which I pay money to, enforce laws that prevent me from writing software is objectionable to me.
OTOH, I think that DRM is a great idea. Fun, even. The satellite TV wars are, I think, one of the neatest things going. The company engineers manage to make it annoying enough that your average Joe is willing to just pay for his TV. Hackers are having a fun time competing with the engineers. It's a technical war at its finest. If the company engineers eventually come out on top, more power to them. They fought the good fight and won. Just as I support not artifically restricting the rights of someone to write copy protection bypassing software, I support the right of the TV engineers to write whatever protection software they want. This has always been the case, ranging from the days of colored watermarks to screw up Xeroxing to now.
But, you might think, digital copy protection is harder to get by than analog copy protection? Tough. It's also much easier to *copy* digital information en masse than it is to Xerox something a thousand times.
I'd like the DMCA gone, but that doesn't mean that DRM should go away.
May we never see th
The DMCA should take a hint and get off everyones back.
I was watching the making of star wars making of type shows and there were mac's on pretty much every workstation. Now do they really want to lock down a platform that is used to create the movies (media), seems to me that that would reduce the amount of programs to use to create the content.
Is that what they really want.
Now I didn't get to read the article so I may be wrong. (it was slashdoted)
Dan
Straight men don't use Macs.
Umm... The link you posted seems to suggest otherwise. Just look at the pictures. The fact that you appeared to have missed this seems to suggest that YOU are not a straight man.
Trolls aside, but as a queer I tend to think that the "gayness" of the art scene is mostly a result of there being intelligent and open-minded people who aren't afraid to experiment with their sexuality. Still that doesn't make them gay and I'd say there are no more of us real queers in the art scene than in any other profession.
So, in your opinion Apple had a "right to profit"?
How is the free markets supposed to work if you cannot sell a competing product with the same functionality at a reduced price?
Goddammit, why can't we get together and do something about this? Why don't we geeks create some infrastructure where people can create, review, rate, and sell content at a fair price? No, geeks can't just come out and do something that will affect joe sixpack and his ??AA overlords, but why not create the infrastructure for ourselves, and use it fairly, let joe sixpack join if he wants. Every indy artist has one or two geek friends.... if you build it, they will come.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
They're not cheap (and nor are the blanks), so it's hardly a "consumer-grade" unit, but there are no restrictions on purchasing or ownership, so anyone can own one.
Can you give more information about CSS - there was nothing on that page that even hinted at it.
Who's key do you use? (there are a fixed number) Is the CSS authoring implemented in software or hardware? Why do they not even mention CSS on the page?
I disagree. Making a CSS-enabled DVD interferes with my use of DVDs on Linux.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!