DRM Protest in Hazmat Suits

johnsu01 writes "The Free Software Foundation launched a new anti-DRM initiative today with a flash protest at Bill Gates's keynote speech to Microsoft developers in Seattle. They're calling the new campaign 'Defective by Design' and have named Big Media, device manufacturers and proprietary software companies as targets. CivicActions is participating as a coalition partner in the campaign. Protesters donned HazMat suits, apparently to emphasize the hazard Digital Restrictions Management poses to their rights." There are also a few pictures available over at Defectivebydesign.org.

Comments

Yep, that'll do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Our concerns will definitely be taken seriously if we protest against copyright and fair use restrictions by parading around in bunny suits. Way to go.

Re:Yep, that'll do it.

[eln]

The FSF gets stuck with those labels anyway. The point of a protest is to get people to pay attention to your cause. If the press coverage of a protest is such that at least some people learn more about your cause than they knew before, then it can be considered a success.

I think this type of flash protest has been shown to be effective. It has garnered press for all sorts of causes, particularly political causes. Whether or not the hazmat suits were a good idea or not depends on if you think the protest would have gotten more or less coverage without them.

Thank you and congratulations

[idonthack]

Few people have the resources or even the courage to do something like this. Thank you, protestors, for getting peoples' attention and informing them of the issue.

The are no rights

[Instine]

I'm not an anarchist But, who exactly ordains us with rights?

Is this a good thing?

[crotherm]

Do these type of protests help or hinder? Sure, wearing a hazmat suit will get you noticed, but will they remember you because of your voice, or your suit? Will they agree with you, or think you are a kook?

Re:Is this a good thing?

[s20451]

Which protest gets you a picture in the paper?

1. Normal-looking people wearing normal clothes, speaking politely
2. Crazy people wearing HAZMAT suits, shouting and carrying on

Face it -- politics is theater. If you don't get noticed, you don't get heard.

Slashdot FAQ

[LostCluster]

The Slashdot FAQ explains exactly what is going on here:

From The last question in the Slashmeta section:
"I thought everyone on Slashdot hated the RIAA, the MPAA, and Microsoft. Why do you keep hyping CDs, movies, and Windows games?
Big corporations are what they are. They sell us cool stuff with one hand and tighten the screws on our freedoms with the other. We hate them every morning and love them every afternoon, and vice versa. This is part of living in the modern world: you take your yin with your yang and try to figure out how to do what's right the best you can. If you think it has to be all one way or the other, that's cool, share your opinions, but don't expect everyone else to think the same."

We hate that "Big Media" is using ever "improving"/"tightening" DRM restrictions, but we have to accept them if we want the latest music, video, and computer content. These people deserve to get paid, and this is their way of blocking the free providers of their content. If you don't like what they're doing, do without their content.

Re:Slashdot FAQ

[DragonWriter]

For example using DRM to protect your personal information that is in the hands of a large corporation or government.

Yeah, because laws like DMCA that criminalize circumvention technology will be observed by and enforced against the executive branch of the government by, erm, the executive branch of the government.

I really don't get how all this Anti-DRM / anti-crypto think that is out there.

Most anti-DRM people I know are very much pro-crypto, and pro-DRM types tend to be anti-crypto in many other contexts -- particularly, they tend to be for strong controls on who can use cryptography, and what mechanisms can be publicly used.

So, AFAICT, the thing you have trouble understanding doesn't actually exists, in the first place.

DRM is just another type of technology that should be used rightly.

DRM is pretty much impossible to use "rightly" because the "rights" its "manages" often don't, and should not, exclusively belong to the controller of the DRM: particularly, while the right to copy in some manners and for some purposes is, properly speaking, an exclusive right of the copyright holder, there are plenty of existing, necessary, and publicly beneficial exceptions to that exclusivity -- including, but not limited to, fair use -- that DRM is utterly incapable, by nature, of distinguishing.

Seems to Me...

[Greyfox]

That the first thing you need to do is educate consumers as to why they should care. You need a series of nationwide TV commercials to gently introduce them to the idea. Currently average consumers only find this stuff out when they get burned by it and ask someone who reads slashdot to explain what the hell is going on.

Unfortunately Joe Average Consumer doesn't have the foggiest idea about Copyright in general, much less the new mechanims being put in place to "protect" it. There's a pretty solid volume of information that the average consumer needs to know that they can only discover by talking to someone who's been dealing with this sort of thing for a while. Actually that's been the case for quite a while now -- I doubt the general public would have stood for Sonny Bono's Copyright Extension Act if they really knew the score. Much less the DMCA.

It seems to me that Copyright issues should be taught in public schools at a fairly early grade level. The course should include history, fair use, recent events (The Sonny Bono act and the DMCA,) and the Walt Disney Corporation. Perhaps if we did that we'd have a consumer who is both more likely to respect copyrights and who would be a lot less tolerant of extending the scope of the copyright well beyond what anyone (other than a big corporation) would consider "fair."

Re:Seems to Me...

[deque_alpha]

And why should they care? DRM isn't keeping them from enjoying the content they've paid for. It isn't an issue for "Joe Public".

That is true. If you ignore the people who want to make backups of their DVD's so the kids don't scratch up the originals, but can't. And if you ignore the people who want to format shift their music from CD's to some other player, but can't, or run the risk of having their computer disabled by buggy DRM software. And if you ignore all the people who buy eBooks and then want to view them on a device other than which it was orginally purchased on, but can't. And if you ignore the people who buy music online and then want to move it to another computer, but can't.

If I thought harder, the list could get longer. And if Big Media gets its way, it will get a lot longer. This isn't an issue for the majority of the Joe Publics out there, but there are some, and it will be a big issue if we stay on the course we are on now. However, most people will just accept those limitations once they are in place, forcing all of us to live to the lowest common denominator. Also, don't forget about all the interesting gadgets that may never be in an environment where media is so tightly controlled. There is a strong argument that the diversity and low prices that we now enjoy with DAPs would have never been created if the controls that Big Media propose now were in place 5 or 10 years ago.

That's why public awareness needs to be raised now, so that this trend can be stopped. It's easier to prevent negative changes than it is to reverse them. It is short-sighted to assume that just because something isn't a problem now, or isn't a problem for you that it isn't a problem. I want my kids to enjoy at least as much freedom as I do, if not more. That's why things like this are important, and that's why trends like this need to be fought.

Something not nothing

[styryx]

At least they did go out there and protest. Arguing on the internet is like running in the special olympics....

It doesn't matter what the protestors are wearing, it's the point they're protesting and it's the number of them.

If you are against DRM then you shouldn't criticise these people if the only protesting you have done is posting on /.

I do not exclude myself from this rant, fair play to those people. It's something, not nothing.

Re:Boo hoo hoo

[kz45]

Microsoft, Disney, and big corporations are the pirates here. They are stripping us of our rights to fair use, to our privacy, and they have the nerve to claim it's for the artists. They've been ripping off artists and consumers for years. They are the real pirates.

you aren't forced to use the products of Microsoft, Disney, or any large corporation. Fair use is not a right. If you don't agree with their tactics, STOP FUCKING USING THEIR PRODUCTS!

on the other hand, people sharing their software illegally are pirates. The large companies have no choice in the matter, unlike you.

Why not use open source alternatives?

They are protesting the wrong stuff

[erroneus]

Protest the LAWS that allow these measures to be more than a nuissance. It's all well and good for media publishers to make playback annoying to the end user. So long as it can be played back, it can be media-shifted for any and all consumer use. However, since there are laws like the DMCA which make certain aspects media-shifting and other fair uses criminal or otherwise in violation of the law, we have a problem with the existance of the law.

No one can expect media publishers to respect their consumers any more than their consumers demand. The consumer at large doesn't care about any of this and doesn't yet feel damaged enough to protest. But when they finally do, they will find that it's the LAW that is the offender and not the publishers.

Microsoft and others are simply doing what is considered to be in their best insterests. It is to their advantage that their stuff be able to access the media from these publishers. If it couldn't, the consumers would dislike it. So if it means creating and sustaining DRM per publisher demands, then so be it as far as they are concerned. It is very rare when issues like "right and wrong" or "good and bad" actually play a role in corporate decision making. Slave labor isn't cheap enough for them and I doubt there is a point that isn't too low for them so long as their products and services continue to make a profit.

Protesting people who don't care while trying to gain the attention of people who don't care is a complete waste of time and resources.

Finding ways to get people to care isn't.

Re:We need a new "godwin" for ghandi comparisons

[susano_otter]

...some people also see that the current issues of DRM etc are just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.

You have no idea.

The iceberg isn't "copyright issues in the digital age", but rather how the inexorable advance of telecommunications technology will change everything in society, in ways we can't predict today, much less adapt to.

Our grandchildren will live in a world of vastly different rules and customs and attitudes regarding privacy, security, etiquette, terrorism, manufacturing, travel, etc. The rules of our world will not apply in the slightest.

Slashdot dreams of our rules, and making the **AA play by our rules in the digital age. I'm becoming more and more convinced that our rules are just as much of a dinosaur as the **AA itself. That the problems are new, but even Slashdot can't help but insist on trying to solve them in the same old way.

Re:We need a new "godwin" for ghandi comparisons

[Opportunist]

The issue is the same: freedom.

The implications are different. While Ghandi was facing imprisonment for crimes that are none, people violating DRM are ... ok, the implications are the same too.

Without trying to get cocky here, it's not about making a copy of a Slipknot album or if you want a Robby Williams one. The issue is freedom, and that this freedom is being ripped away. Not by being unable to copy a meaningless tune, but by the ability to rewrite history at will. That's what DRM is about.

Copying issues is a vessel that allows you to "sell" that issue to those who don't care about liberty but only care about getting free music.

DRM does not only prevent copies. It allows you to retroactively void information, provided you have power over the keys to that information. If an information is no longer to be viewable, it can be erased. Including the copy you have on your computer. Its key is no longer valid, you can no longer view it. No, you couldn't print it in the first place to have a hard copy that can't be erased.

DRM is, in fact, the ability to recreate and reshape statements. While it won't be as blatant as in 1984, where the announcer changes the name of the enemy mid sentence, it is going to be used, albeit more subtle. Whistleblowing will be incredibly hard, since you won't have any evidence to back up your claim. The evidence you had will vanish, since there won't be a key to unlock it anymore when you need it. Your key, the key you used when you were still allowed to view the information, will be deleted.

DRM is BY FAR more than the "threat" that we won't be able to use our CD writers anymore. The real danger is that you can commit a crime and pretty much flush any evidence, if you're in a position of power to create and delete keys to it.

Re:We need a new "godwin" for ghandi comparisons

[ewhac]

There's no real comparison; Ghandi was fighting for the right for he and his people to live in their own country, free of occupiers -and he was demonstrating that he was willing to put his life on the line for that cause.

These people are bitching because they can't make copies of the latest slipknot tune, and they're looking like shrill tools at best.

A reasonable person can see the vast devide [sic] both between the severity of the struggle, and the sacrifices being made.

The disparity between the struggles is vast only if you look at it in the most superficial of terms. You look and see only "tools" and "pirates" [sic] looking to get stuff for free. But scratch deeper, and you'll find more similarities than even I'm comfortable admitting.

The British Empire walked into India, unwanted and uninvited, planted a flag and, without regard to what went before, proclaimed, "We will now dictate how things shall be done here," Gandhi raised the awareness of his people (and the Britons) and said, "Your authority is illegitimate, and derives solely from threat of force. It is immoral and unethical for you to be here. Please go away."

Today, we find a struggle with disquieting similarities -- an invading force is occupying territory and proclaiming that they shall now dictate how things shall be done. Except that, instead of an imperial nation, it's multinational media corporations; and instead of occupying someone else's country, they're occupying our computers.

Our computers.

You may find the comparison fatuous. But, once you finally drill down to the core issue, you must ultimately acknowledge that what's at stake is nothing less than your freedom to do with your property as you please.

My interests are not served by ceding control of my computers to a self-appointed authority -- to have another man acting as master in my house. It is an affront to my values and my personal sovereignty, and I will not stand for it.

You are, of course, free to differ, and invite unaccountable corporate control over the computer you bought and paid for. But, in such a case, one is prompted to turn the "tool" ad hominem back at the accuser and ask: Who here is the greater "tool"?

Schwab

Uh, yeah. Only, not.

[JimmytheGeek]

If something is inalienable, it's not because something/someone flagged it as such. In fact, you have it backwards - if something has been granted, it can be revoked. You just want to tie your particular superstition to my rights, which have no need of your theological support.

And whose the biggest threat to liberty right now? Theocrats in the U.S. and the arab world.

Uh, no...

[maillemaker]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are equal, that they have certain rights..." Along with "creator",
>another word disappeared - "inalienable". Because once we don't believe in God, and that He gave us these rights, then
>we just have them because... well, because we decided that we have them. And that means that we (or the majority of "we")
>can decide that we don't have them. The rights aren't inalienable any more.
>
>When our country lost its collective faith in God, it had political consequences. All our rights are up for grabs now.

I believe in God, but I don't buy it.

First of all, the only reason the word "inalienable" disappeared with the word "God" is because you chose to omit it. One could just as easily argue that right is right (and rights are rights) regardless of whether or not there is a god. I bet you there are a hundred different religions that are radically different in their interpretaton of god and religion and yet are consistent in what is considered moral behavior. Since they can't all be right, how would it be that all of the wrong practioners have secured the idea of "right" and "rights"?

Also, let's face it - no matter what god was in vogue at any point in history, MEN, with agendas, and NOT a god, have constantly been trying to tell other men what rights they think their god conveys unto other men. With the clarity of 20/20 hindsight, it's clear that in many cases the dictation has merely been to further an agenda, and not to secure rights for others.

Rights erode because of apathy, nothing more.

Steve