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DRM Advocate Violates DRM

Posted by Zonk on from the i-don't-like-you-either dept.

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."

3 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. So can we report him... by Lothsahn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To the agencies and get him arrested for violation of the DMCA?

    Finally, a GOOD use for the DMCA... putting people behind bars that support the DMCA.

    Mod me flamebait, if you want... but DON'T mod this funny! I'm being serious...

    --
    -=Lothsahn=-
  2. Re:He was right then, and he's right now. by rhizome · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If the DRM was improved so that it would get out of his way, he would still have no issue with it.

    Except that the whole *point* of DRM is to be in the way. What would a DRM system that did not get in the way look like?

    --
    When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
  3. Re:He was right then, and he's right now. by steelfood · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This begs the question. How does this technology know who you are, and how does it know that you're you. How does a computer differenciate between you loaning something to somebody (a DVD) and making a copy for that person (your ideal DRM would provent you not from making the copy, which would get in the way of people looking to back things up, but prevent your friend from playing your DVD).

    Perhaps your solution is biometrics. But what if you got into a horrible accident and lost that particular part of your body? Your eyes? Your face was disfigured? You lost your fingerprints, fingers, or even the whole arm?

    So what about a unique PGP key? What if you lose or forget it? Do you stop being you? Do you now have no right to any of your stuff because you cannot be identified?

    Any way you cut it, DRM will be intrusive to somebody. And if you justify its existence by saying that person isn't likely to be you, then I think that's a very selfish way of looking at things, and completely inappropriate for application to the rest of the world.

    --
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."