Slashdot Mirror
DRM Advocate Violates DRM
Alsee writes "A year and a day after arguing DRM was good for business, acceptable to consumers, and necessary in today's world, JupiterMedia VP and Research Director Michael Gartenberg comes face to face with DRM reality, downloads a circumvention tool, violates DRM, and blogs about his MS Reader DRM issues being solved ... permanently. Perhaps now he would be interested in the EFF Action Center where Americans can quickly and easily ask your Representative to co-sponsor the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act."
Note that he still feels DRM is a necessary evil, just so long as there's a way to circumvent it...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
I know this probably violates some unwritten rule on slashdot, but I did actually read the link;
He said in his blog that he circumvented the DRM.
He provides a link to the tool he used to do it.
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Is this really a violation?
Unfortunately in current US law, the mere circumvention of a "copy protection" mechanism by the end user is illegal, whether your doing so violates ordinary copyright or not. There are exceptions made for libraries and research institutions, but not for ordinary end users.
This "well thought out" piece of legislation is called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The Librarian of Congress has made four exceptions to circumvention prohibition:
Please, for the love of the cause, quit asking people to use a form to send their Congressperson spam. They don't read it and it sends a poor message about the kinds of people who care about the issue.
Instead, type out a personal letter, put it in the envelope, stamp it, and send it. The time investment is considerably larger and I can assure you that it doesn't go unnoticed.
I've had the opprotunity to work in the offices of several legislators, and phone calls (those were with a state legislator) & e-mails were replied to in bulk with generic standard responses, such as the "We are considering measure _____, and appreciate your input" that you may have recieved if you sent in an e-mail. Letters, on the other hand, get read. Especially if they're well written.
So take the time to clearly articulate your reasoning and use the good old-fashioned snail mail. You'll get a lot more done.
Well, that's your choice.
There's no legal, click-wrap contract, or other issues of force or coercion involved here. Apple explicitly permits you to make non-DRMed backups of your music. In fact they encourage it.
If even touching a DRMed format is enough to squick you, if very idea disgusts you, then that's your trip.
But where you see DRM, I see nothing but a facade.
Is this really a violation?
Yes, and this is why slashdot is constantly attacking the DMCA. It doesn't protect fair use, so when a situation like this arrises, the benefit of the doubt goes to the content provider rather than the consumer.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
And, thanks to Google cache, here is the link to the program he used:
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
And it looks like the bill sponsor is the Representative from Slashdot, Boucher. Seriously, I love this guy (and I'm kinda sad that he represents Virginia instead of my state). Take a look at the list of legislation he's been involved in.
Reading down the list, he's opposed the RIAA, the DMCA, argued for fair use, argued for privacy laws, argued against the broadcast flag, argued against additional RIAA laws (and urged that the RIAA simply lower prices to provide a more appealing product), in favor of allowing features for Linux, worked on weakening the DMCA, pushed an anti-spam law (though admittedly not the most stringent of the proposals), pushed for the Do Not Call List, opposed DoJ anti-P2P propaganda attempts, and been a proponent of pro-VoIP laws. His arguments are quite tech-savvy -- if the man does not understand technology himself, he has some pretty sharp advisors. Many of these stances have been those that oppose major lobbyist groups (direct marketing, RIAA, MPAA, etc).
Stick about a hundred more like him in Congress and throw Orrin Hatch to the wolves and I'd have a damn lot of respect for the legislative branch.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/burn.html