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FSF, Political Activism or Crossing the Line?
orbitor writes to tell us InfoWorld's Neil McAllister is calling into question some of the recent decisions by the Free Software Foundation. From the article: "All the more reason to be disappointed by the FSF's recent, regrettable spiral into misplaced neo-political activism, far removed from its own stated first principles. In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights management) technologies, which first manifested itself in early drafts of Version 3 of the GPL (Gnu General Public License), seems now to have been elevated to the point of evangelical dogma."
But, the author trys to present FSFs anti DRM as a new thing:Which just isn't true - stallman wrote in his GNU Manifesto:You can see pretty clearly how DRM fits in there - and if you don't believe in DRM on software, why on earth would you for content?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Since when has FSFs neo-political activism been a "recent spiral". RMS has been a loud-mouth activist since before most /. readers were born (and hopefully, he won't be shutting up any time soon).
The authors opinions seem just as clueless as his non-facts.
Apart from misquoting "There is no more important cause for electronic freedoms and privacy than the call for action to stop DRM from crippling our digital future" (slightly different meaning there mate) I'm struggling to wonder why he's surprised that the free software foundation would be against DRM. Admittedly the car steering analogy is a bit silly - it's more like a car that will only steer on vendor-approved roads.
An utterly idiotic article.
And hey, I believe in them. They're hardly about to do anything particularly evil, now are they?
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are no more credible than any other type of zealot. It's the extension of a basically sound idea to an unrealistic, harmful, and (in the worst cases) counterintuitive extreme.
...but is it art?
No acerbic editorial commentary from the editors/submitter? Surprising.
> In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights [sic] management) technologies, which first manifested itself in early drafts of Version 3 of the GPL (Gnu [sic, it's GNU] General Public License), seems now to have been elevated to the point of evangelical dogma.
Um, yeah? They're the Free Software Foundation -- they like Freedom. DRM is the exact opposite of Freedom, which is why they're against it. The FSF has always been about politics. If you want the neutral, "here's some code, enjoy!" stance, use the BSD license. If you want to ensure that software remains Free for generations to come, then the GPL is the way to go.
If you read Stallman's essay, The Right to Read , you'll see why he's so opposed to DRM. Today, DRM is limited to crappy pop music that nobody wants any, but the extension of what can be done with DRM is pretty scary. It's easier to nip the DRM plague in the bud rather than wait until the society in The Right to Read becomes reality!
My other car is first.
While TFA is certainly excessive in the manner in which it presents this issue, it does indicate a deeper concern. Why shouldn't DRM'd software be written and sold, as long as the transaction is voluntary? It's no more restrictive than any other type of contract - and contracts are the foundation of the economics surrounding any creative work.
...but is it art?
Perhaps I'm uninformed, but how can opposing DRM, a technique which clearly never will work in the long run and in the end be paid for by consumers, be a bad thing?
People are watching freakin' cammed versions of movies for Petes sake... When will the DRM firms get it?! I should go patent sound waves and photons and claim that these are a "media distribution channel for IP".
I'm not sure I agree with recent FSF positions (haven't tracked them much recently), but I agree overall with the FSF taking the long view of free software. There are enormous latent risks that DRM or shifts in the IP landscape (patents) could poison the well ten or twenty years down the road, by which point the crucial battles have already been lost. It's easy to come off as radical crusaders fighting battles that won't play out over a span of decades. Our short little span of attention is our worst enemy in these matters. The fact that they are alone in their extreme urgency doesn't prove much directly: they might be equally alone in a correct analysis of the risks at hand. Just because Chicken Little is squawking, that doesn't mean the sky isn't falling. Glib comments about Chicken Little behaving like Chicken Little have add nothing of any use to the larger debate. My comments add nothing of any use, either, but at least I know the difference.
"neo-political activism"
"moralistic opposition"
"evangelical dogma"
Oh no.
A belief system which evolves into politics, moral theory, and spiritual fervor.
Ain't it just awful. The sky, she is falling.
I don't imagine our Chicken Little would have a major problem with countervailing belief systems which have gone the same route, though.
Capitalism, for instance.
If anyone really thinks that DRM is or should be outside the FSF's agenda, he should read The Right to Read.
DRM is exactly the kind of things that caused Stallman to launch the FSF in the first place.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
To every action, reaction.
Don't you think just saying "sigh" and smiling at the look of big corporations spreading trojans in music entertainment disks is kinda lethargic?
There guys are just pissed off and doing what they thing they should do. Not defending them nor condemning them. But when you see things take in a radically bad direction and noone doing anything serious to correct it, you just gotta expect this "bad energy" to burst from somewhere.
This time, it's FSF.
Maybe this is because I don't fully understand all the FSF does, but it seems to me what really advances the cause of free software is free software that WORKS. The Linux kernel, GNU tools etc... all do WAY more to advance the idea of free software than any amount of political advocacy.
There's a reply to TFA posted on www.defectivebydesign.org
http://defectivebydesign.org/node/78
Clearly, despite DRM's widely discussed inadequacies and regular aggravations, more than a few consumers are willing to put up with it when the price is right. That's just basic free-market economics.
This is not a free market! The record industry controls how music is allowed to be released. They restrict the market. If there was a choice between DRM and non-DRM music, everyone would go for the non-DRM stuff. It would allow them choice over which mp3 player to buy, not restrict them to an arbitrarty number of copies, allow them to play them on many types of DVD player, and give them all the flexibility that CDs give.
I don't see iTunes files on the sharing networks, and FairPlay has yet to be cracked in a way that allows a person to remove protection from a file that they didn't purchase. So you might dislike DRM and FairPlay, but it is working.
In the last month or two, I've undergone a shift. I used to be fairly moderate in all this. I thought Lessig's book made some really good points, and I thought "there's a nice middle ground, it's only fair that the artists protect their rights, and that people should understand their own rights and at the same time not be piracy apologists. I don't pirate stuff very much, and I don't really mind when people do.
But especially with the new HDMI shit, with looking at what the DMCA actually lets people do, and thinking a little more about the big picture, I would like to take this chance to say: screw 'em. I hope the internet takes down the music industry, and then moves on to the movie industry. Let's take some risks, let's give people a little basic freedom, and let's let technology run its course a little and then figure out how to make money off the result. People have a hard time dealing with change, but it happens.
MPAA, I'm gonna go spend a little more time on the beach with my friends and a little less time trying to convince you and your surrogates that I legally own this DVD. Screw you and your careful licensing of permissions. And FSF, you've gained a contributor.
None of this is particularly new or revolutionary, but I want to add my voice to the chorus. Let's shake things up a bit.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
as a consumer, writer, musician, actor, or software developer.
Remind me how it benefits someone else?
It seems to me that the entire point of DRM technology is to remove the cd/dvd/physical media from the equation and thereby 1) track customers more efficiently (by requiring them to verify ownership from time to time) 2) prevent people from sharing or reselling whatever DRM enabled IP they have purchased.
This is an encroaching invasion of privacy and a perversion of the spirit of commerce and as such I think the FSF is right to be worried.
Because the combination DRM+DMCA prevents the creation of an open source implementation of a player/encoder of any DRMed format.
I see the logic behind the FSF position and it seems objective enough to me. Their goal is to defend the 2-3% of the population known as "the geeks" who care for their digital rights and who have, in the field of computer science, a better chance than the rest of the population to recognise a "slippery slope". Of course, 97-98% of the population don't know/don't care about these issues and are numerous enough to make a commercial success
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
You mean .aac and .mp4 files? I see them all the time.
What if next time RMS decides (say under the pretence of intellectual freedom or some crap like that) he doesn't like country music and that free software mustn't be used in any part of the process of creating or playing country music? Who'd be there to stop him? Or how?
I fear that this kind of pseudo-activism is not going to help anybody but will set back the free software movement by years. Just after "the masses" have at least started accepting and/or understanding the free software spirit instead of mistaking it for communistic nonsense of an old, befuddled hippie.
And weren't there statements by Linus or someone else that the Linux kernel as we know it will never be released under the GPLv3? Doesn't surprise me.
And which parallel universe did you crawl out of?
And assuming the lack of cracked iTunes-files on the sharing networks is not simply a consequence of the same content being available in more popular and easier formats. Why would anyone care to crack and upload a itunes-file aslong as the same song is going to be ten times as popular as a plain old mp3 ?
You can turn it around and say: There's no content on iTunes that isn't also circulating freely on the sharing-networks in unprotected form. Thus the DRM on iTunes fails at preventing piracy.
I look forward to a day when the MPAA and the RIAA store everything on their own servers and I simply need to pay a license fee to have access to my music and movies anytime and anywhere (car, home, office, beach, Mars) without having to deal with any physical media at all.
Personally, I get tired of dealing with records, tapes, CDs, DVDs and the cycle of upgrading, the frustration of finding my favorite album scratched and unplayable or my kids tear it up or the dog pees on it or the latest format comes out and everything I have now sounds or looks like crap. Heck, make it a re-occuring license fee so they aren't incentivized to purposely build in self-deprecation to spur new sales of media formats and player hardware.
I personally don't care about the physical media, I don't get my jollies buying, owning and setting up hardware, I don't need to have a room devoted to wall-to-wall CD shelves to impress my friends a couple times a year at my massive collection.
I just want to hear my music and occasionally watch a movie when and where I want.
Runesabre
Enspira Online
The GPL is based on the idea that Free access to information benefits everyone, and it's not just a hunch. There are good reasons to believe that it's the right idea. You can't possibly expect that the people who are writing a license to protect this freedom tolerate deliberate restriction of access to information that the users of the license helped create.
1. You can buy DRM music or not buy DRM music. You have a choice and know what you are buying.
2. Artists can distribute music themselves or through a label. They have a choice.
3. If the artists distribute it themselves, they can protect it with DRM or not protect it with DRM.
4. If the artist goes with a label, the label can choose to protect the music with drm or not protect it with drm
Nowhere is there force and nowhere is there fraud.
Furthermore, artists don't HAVE to sign with a label. Especially with the Internet, they can distribute music without one. If an artist chooses to sign with a label and the label insists on DRM, that is a choice made in a free market.
YOUR argument is that the market is not free because YOU want to buy/download non-drm music. That is not the definition of a free market. A free market is a market without an artificial price mechanism, and a market that is free from force and fraud. Here's a reasonably good wiki article on the subject.
Generally, I do not think that by itself DRM is morally wrong. But considering some of the DRM proposals out there it makes complete sense that the FSF should oppose them. And this has nothing to do with music or movies. It has to do with free software.
In other words some of the DRM proposals out there may actually make it impossible to run legally obtained free software on computers. For example, hardware based software verification may make it impossible to load Linux on any PC.
Also most DRM schemes rely not only on secrcy of passwords and codes, but secrecy of the process of decoding itself. Now everyone here knows that this is a completely stupid strategy and security by obscurity is no security at all, but thats the way things are working out. When the process is secret, this automaticaly means that it cannot be performed by free software. I.e., if one writes free software to do it they risk legal liability as free (as in open source) software inherently reveals the process.
So in other words even if one ignores the anti-DRM idealism, the fact still remains that the current proposed DRM protection schemes can basically make it impossible to use free software for many if not most tasks.
Would the FSF oppose a theoretical 'perfect' DRM which allowed the user all of their fair use rights (backups, format shifting, excerpts, decrypts itself at the end of the copyright term etc.), just didn't allow distribution? Or is it the very idea of DRM that they oppose, regardless of how it's used?
"or write it yourself" ... and if you do so you can even license it under the GPL v.2!
....
I wonder when the first wiseacre does that without "clean rooming" and the FSF sues him for publishing software under the GPL v.2 which was licensed solely under the GPL v.3
Yeah! A more appropriate analogy would be "A media player that restricts what you can play is like a car that won't let you steer. The user absolutely doesn't care about that, because the road ahead is straight all the way to the horizon - but they should care, because there's a sudden bend 200 kilometers away where there's a tree right on the car's path." The problem is that people can usually only grasp really simple analogies, and this analogy of mine is probably pushing it a little bit.
Oh no!!! A nightmare scenario! Don't takes mah country musics away!
Thanks a lot... now I'll be up all night worrying.
You don't see any AAC files on the filesharing networks because that line of defense is still standing. People are just walking clean around the side of it though, burning their music to CD and then ripping it back into good old mp3 like mom used to make.
50 posts per day limit
No DRM system ever told an artist what notes to play or what lyrics were OK to sing. But the FSF seems intent on doing just that.
Really? And, pray tell, how are they going to do that? What's the relation between opposing DRM and content to be created by the artists? This is the most misleading sentence in the article, and it looks only too logical that it be mirrored in the title.
rehdon
The core of McAllister's argument is that the FSF has changed its stance on software from promoting an "idealistic notion" which was "not just radical, but surprisingly practical" (and hugely successful) to "moralistic oppostion" in which DRM is given such an inflated importance that opposing it has become an "evangelical dogma".
...
Looking at the terms like "evil" used by the FSF to describe DRM, it is hard not to think McAllister has a point.
This has little to do with whether you think DRM is A Good Thing or A Bad Thing. It is a question of the FSF's attitude towards it. Alas, what the article doesn't do is consider whether the FSF's new tactics (if you think they are new) are more or less likely to succeed than their older and more laid-back ones.
Telling someone that if they disagree with you they are morally wrong is not usually a great way to get them on your side. It comes across as arrogant, I would guess. Suggesting that by agreeing with you they will help to make the world a fairer and better place for both them and everyone else is usually more successful. So, yes, one can argue that the FSF has chosen to be too shrill and over-the-top to be as effective as it might be, especially since consumers have already shown with iTunes that if the price is right they will flock to a DRM-encumbered scheme in huge numbers.
However, Apple is only one company. Behind them lurk some decidedly bloodthirsty characters, and the Beast of Redmond
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Quoth Neil:
"For starters, market realities right here in the United States put the lie to the FSF's histrionics. Apple's iTunes Store, which sells DRM-encoded music and videos to millions of iPod owners, is going like gangbusters. Clearly, despite DRM's widely discussed inadequacies and regular aggravations, more than a few consumers are willing to put up with it when the price is right. That's just basic free-market economics."
Umm, yes, true... if the price is right, people will put up with all kinds of shit. But that's not the point - the point is the same people will lose out in the longer term because of the drm they bought, and the dmca (and related) legislation that backs it up. The "hysterics" of the fsf are designed to make the average joe more aware of this.
Next quote:
"For DRM to fail in the entertainment industry, all that needs to happen is for customers to choose not to buy it, which in turn should convince artists not to use it."
This would be fine if the **aa weren't a monopoly for all practical purposes. But they are, so they can shove pretty much whatever they like down the neck an apathetic public.
Just my $0.02.
Productive, huh?
It's not a free market because the government creates artificial barriers to entry through copyright laws. A free market for CD's would be one in which it's legal for you to rip a CD you've purchased 1000 times and sell the copies for whatever you could get.
A free market probably wouldn't work too well for CD's, though, because of the huge spillover benefit the original seller (i.e., the artist) confers on the rest of the market. Most of the time, spillover benefits are corrected through government subsidies. In this case, the government decided to create copyright law instead.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
it's a balance. the content creators DO have a right to limit your access to content they create. this provides them with an incentive to create content. but only in certain ways, and only for a certain amount of time. and yet currently, the limitations on what they can do to limit your access and how long they can limit it are exanding beyond the common sense balance between financial incentive and cultural considerations
there are two kinds of riches: financial riches and cultural riches. content creating companies are limiting the public domain as much as they can, and will push the limits forever, until there is no public domain. the impetus to do that is driven by financial gain, theirs, at a corresponding cultural loss, ours. songs and movies that should have gone into the public domain years ago won't go into the public domain now until you are dead, thanks to sonny bono
so ip law has ceased to make sense and ceased to be morally sound. corporations are enriching themselves at your detriment. you should own your culture, all of us should own our culture. but if it were up to bmg, time warner, etc., they would own your culture forever. what do those limitations do? they impoverish you. not financially. they impoverish you culturally
that's not morally right nor even financially sound in the long run for the content owners. for pulic domain culture is the basis for the creators of content for the next big financial gains of tomorrow. so it is a game of diminishing returns for them, but they don't see that. their greed is monomaniacal, and knows no other ocnsideration except hte almighty buck, even if giving up more to public domain will actually increase their bottom line by providing for a more rich cultural space
they own the armies of lawyers, but we own the moral imperative. unfortunately, we cannot expres the moral imperative in how the laws should be written because of undue financial influence. so balance must be restored bia other means at our disposal
and the first step in restoring that balance is to reunderline to the corporateinterests who is really in charge here. us. we have the moral high ground when it comes to owning our own culture. we cannot steal our own culture. we are in charge
and what when our pragmatic decision to give content creators the right to limit our access to what they make financially so they will make content for us is warped into a perverse land grab for te entire cultural space, beyond all commonsense considerations in order to squeeze every last dime out of us, impoverishing us culturally, then we have the right to deny them their financial gains
how?
piracy
they have no moral high ground
so consider piracy your rightful moral protest against shortsighted corporate greed
bleed them to death
if they will deny us the balance of a rightful commonsnese public domain sunset, then we will deny them their profits, even on what is rightfully there's to profit from, had we lived in a world where corporate interests restrained their obsessive greed
bleed them until they are fucking dry
let them know who is really in charge
pirate music and movies to the point of obscene indulgence, beyond your desire to watch or listen
this is war people
consider piracy your protest against their immorality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
McAllister is apparently some anti-copyright hippie, because otherwise he'd understand that it's the FSF's code and they can choose whatever license they damned well please. If he doesn't like it, he doesn't have to use it. He's welcome to try and use Microsoft's or Apple's or Oracle's code contrary to their licenses or even try to argue with their legal staff about their licenses and see how far he gets.
He also thinks that free software has to prove itself to him or anybody else; here's a piece of news: it doesn't have to prove anything to anybody. In practice, enough people find it useful for free software to be a force in the market. If McAllister can't figure out why, that's his loss and his problem.
As for "neo-political activism", that's what the FSF is about (that's actually why the FSF and the GNU project are separate, but, hey, if you're an Infoworld journalist, why bother with facts). Personally, I consider the FSF's methods a whole lot better than the campaign contributions and other influence peddling that the big commercial software companies engage in. Regardless of whether you agree with their goals (and I don't always myself), politics is supposed to work like the FSF does it, not like corporate America does it.
If McAllister wants to participate in any meaningful debate on free software and free software licenses, he first needs to get rid of some of his assumptions, foremost his assumption that free software owes him anything.
The record industry controls how music is allowed to be released. They restrict the market
Yes, that's because it's their market. They created the content, they can choose how to distribute it. Similarly, you can choose whether to purchase it or not, nobody is forcing you to spend your money. The market will decide, if people are unhappy with DRM, they will simply stop purchasing content.
Much to the average Slashdotter's frustration, the vast majority of consumers are quite happy to purchase DRM'd music, just look at iTunes. The market has decided, much to the FSF's disgust, this is free market economics at work.
Mind Booster Noori
You can turn it around and say: There's no content on iTunes that isn't also circulating freely on the sharing-networks in unprotected form. Thus the DRM on iTunes fails at preventing piracy.
That seems a bit like saying, "Banks with safes get robbed, so safes fail at preventing bank robberies." DRM certainly will never stop piracy altogether, but if it stops any noticable amount of it, then it will increase the industry's profits (or they believe it will, anyway), and thus they're going to use it.
So, would you advocate a company (or individual) copying the designs of various products like cars, consumer electronics or various innovative products and selling knock-offs cheaper than the originals?
Copyrights and patents exist to protect the designers of these (and other) products. There would be no incentive to spend time (which costs money) desigining these items if they could simply be copied and sold cheaper. Without new technologies, civillisation would not progress. That is why patents and copyrights exist, to ensure the progression of technology and our society through it.
I refer you to the hymn project.
site here:
http://www.hymn-project.org/
it has been cracked, and has been cracked since about 3 years ago. At this point it has been refined to the point people can use spoofing programs to buy from the itunes store without ever having to touch itunes as a program at all and never have DRM encumber the files in the first place.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
At which point did not having another choice become a free market? The IP holders do not offer non-DRM versions of the music on the iTunes store for download.
Yeah, phoning up and complaining that you disagree with a columnist's point of view is certainly the thing to do, and would definitely not act to strengthen the apparent validity of his 'PETA' point at all.
This is imho a classic case of FUD: heavy use of emotinal words and reasoning, false reasoning, using a pro-argument as an against-argument simply by stating it differently.
I tried to make an analysis of the article, and here's what I came up with:
Also, the author suggests that a free market needs no regulation. Unfortunately, history has shown that a free market without regulation does not work properly (labour issues, environmental issues and moral issues are less important than making a profit).
So, what have we: a claim that is not backed up by valid arguments, only by another claim that is in fact not backed up by arguments. A lot of paying on the readers' emotions.
Can't wait to see RMS' rebuttal on this one.
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
This is one of the more ridiculous assertions I have seen in quite a while. It is akin to saying that the rise of the confederate army "puts the lie" to the Union Army's "histrionics" in regard to its anit-Slavery stance. It is a complete non sequitur to conclude that DRM is not bad just because a large part of the populace ignorantly embraces it. The difference here is that the harm falls on the ignorant as well.
People who think DRM is about protecting artist's rights and guaranteeing fair use while stopping piracy have literally no idea what DRM is, or what its potential for abuse implies. DRM is NOT about what music you can play or what videos you can watch, it is about what software you can run on your hardware!
The evolution of DRM is intended to be as follows:
Think about it people! Think! I implore you. You don't think Gates is pro DRM because he cares about making sure artists get paid boatloads of money, do you? Really?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The FSF's most recent effort -- an anti-DRM protest staged at Microsoft's WinHEC conference last week, complete with demonstrators costumed in hazmat suits -- was particularly troubling. It signals a shift in the FSF, from an advocacy organization to one that engages in hysterical activism cut from the PETA mold. Um, what? FSF's tiny flashmob, equipped with some dodgy boiler suits, hardly compares to the work of an organisation which aggressivly targets firms and other organisations for mistreating animals. Hysterical? Almost polite.
There's absolutely nothing that would justify any legal intervention or any other meddling with the market in this case. Nobody is forcing DRM on you.
I envy your naive interpretation of how the "market" can solve everything, as if by magic.
In the real world, not some libertarian's rosy dreamworld, huge corporations buy laws to do just that, force DRM into every device able to render, convert and encode any type of content. Backed by laws like the DMCA and other laws in the making, it poses a real threat to our culture and technical freedom, all for the allmighty dollar (which will plummet very soon anyways).
If you don't like it, just go use software that isn't licensed under the GPL. They aren't forcing anything onto anyone, unlike their peers in the corporate world who are having laws rewritten willy-nilly.
DRM has never prevented any piracy, ever. Every videogame has been released onto file-sharing networks, every song, every movie. What DRM has done is make life very unpleasant for legitimate customers, and cause them to envy their media-downloading brethren who have no such problems. DRM is not about piracy and never has been -- DRM is about making customers buy the same content repeatedly, once for each device they want to use that conent on. Bought a new computer? Sorry, you have to re-purchase your music. Swapped out your CPU? Sorry, you need to buy a new copy of Windows CE (chump edition).
It makes a small number of wealthy investors slightly more wealthy. And if you buy into "trickle-down-economics", that should be enough to make everyone's life better. But it takes about ten seconds of grade-school level mathematics to show that trickle-down economics doesn't work (which is about what you would expect from an economic theory espoused by a guy who was riddled with Alzheimer's), so....
Let me make it very simple for you: YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE THE FSF'S SOFTWARE! Write your own, use BSD, or pay for Windows. You have NO RIGHT to tell the FSF how to license ITS software. No one has to "stop" RMS -- you just have to stop using his works. If you genuinely can't survive without the FSF version of emacs, you're probably doomed anyway.
This article is so full of nonsense, that you might skip it all, until the part where you can read:
For DRM to fail in the entertainment industry, all that needs to happen is for customers to choose not to buy it, which in turn should convince artists not to use it.
This is really true and most people fail to see it. The rest of the article is pure delusive nonsense.
It most certainly is not true. When every product in the market contains DRM, because of cartels, cover-ups and ignorance of the populace, it will sell regardless. People need to take a stand, not just silently accept or wish for the futile hope that everybody will vote with their wallet.
Guess what? Already there are motherboards being sold in new laptops and computers with simple built-in DRM (by IBM and others, no less), without ANY public outcry or backlash.
How about the famous Pentium-III ID chip by Intel? Still there. It is easy for ANY software to enable and disable it in Windows, since the OS, unlike BSD and Linux, allows it. This shows how easy it is to fool the public. Politicians do it all the time..
How to get people to know? Speak about it, support EFF, lobby your government and educate as much as you can. How can people vote with their wallet when the election is unknown? The words needs to get out, and the right people need money for support of this cause!
Don't just trust any "market" to solve problems for you! The market (greed) is the problem in the first place!
There's a finite set of fractions whose sum is 3, namely 0/3, 1/2 and 2/1.
There. Fixed that for myself.
In a world where your DVR can tell you what you can or cannot fast-forward, where your cell phone can give away your exact location, and where ISP's are increasingly pressured to log everything you do online, personal freedom heavily depends on the freedom to control your own information appliances.
How long until your media player can rat you out for watching an unpopular political documentary? The worst dictators of the 20th century only dreamed of dissident entrapment methods that are now possible through misuse of technology, and as this technology becomes ever cheaper and smaller it is only a matter of time until Big Brother's spies can theoretically hide inside any leaf, any particle of dust. I'm not saying that the people who bring us these technologies to it with bad intentions, but if they give corporations and governments tremendous potential to monitor and control the informational activities of the ordinary citizens, and this kind of power, if left unchecked, is sooner or later bound to corrupt.
You don't need an Orwellian outlook to understand these dangers. Corporations are very efficient organizational entities optimized for profit, and in nearly robotic pursuit of ever-greater profit they have been shown to be willing to do everything they can get away with to boost their marketing databases, reduce their costs, and increase your prices. If they could sell you the air you're now breathing, they would. Record labels and many media companies, for example, have pretty much outlived their usefulness with the advent of the Internet, the artists can now distribute and promote themselves, and yet those companies find ways to manipulate both artists and consuers to make ever more billions in profits. If consumers do not exhibit vigilance in controlling their information appliances, their information appliances will begin to control them!
This is why concerned people in increasing numbers are beginning to demand hardware and software transparency, flexibility, and and respect for privacy. Thank you, Free Software Foundation! Thank you, Electronic Frontiers Foundation! We need your efforts now more than ever before.
In my humble opinion, FSF has a role to play as does DRM.
FSF balances the madness of DRM by limiting the type of restrictions content producers can impose on users. Without FSF, DRM will completely run amok and destroy any bit of freedom out there.
DRM exists because there are too many people out there willing to use music and video they didn't buy. To counter it, we have these drastic and very user-hostile measures (DRM) which makes it difficult for people to pirate content, but has the unhealthy side-effect that it punishes even those who rightfully purchased that content. The ideal alternative would be to have a technology which prevents piracy but yet does not hamper legitimate use of purchased content - unfortunately, at this stage such a technology doesn't exist; IMHO, whoever comes up with such a technology will make loads of money.
I think FSF and DRM are both needed, but I look forward to the day when one can purchase content and use the content without all the limitations DRM places even on legal use. I don't know if such a day will ever come. I am not too optimistic.
Last week I purchased a $32 PDF copy of Richard Hamming's amazing book The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn from ebooks.com. I downloaded the PDF, and was unable to read it because the Linux version of Adobe Acrobat Reader 7 does not support the Adobe ebooks DRM standard (other choices were Microsoft DRM and something I've never heard of before). I've been trying to purchase this book for several years but it's out of print and used copies are easily $300 or more. I mailed the company hoping for some solution, but I was only offered a refund.
I really want to read this book. Do I get a refund or try to crack the DRM on something I just bought?
Of course, if I try to crack it, I can be arrested according to the DMCA....
I'm trying to find the consumer value here....
Shae Erisson - ScannedInAvian.com
Magnatune does sell non-DRM'd music. And it has a bunch of great stuff too.
I suggest starting at the top of the Best selling albums of all time list and working your way down. Not everything there does it for me, but I have bought at least ten magnatune albums.
Shae Erisson - ScannedInAvian.com
1) It's free for any purpose
;)] /try/ to do, it just points out that because the license explicitely grants everyone permission to modify the software, you will never be able to succeed.
2) You are free to modify it, for any purpose.
3) You must _not_ attempt to tell anyone else that they cannot use the same software for free, for any purpose.
4) You must _not_ attempt to tell anyone else that they cannot modify the same software, for any purpose.
5) By definition, DRM does not allow you to use the software for any purpose, or modify it for any purpose. If you are truely allowed to do so, it is not DRM. (any restricted player which is "free software" can be turned into a "file de-restricter", for example.)
The "Free" in "Free Software" does not mean the freedom to take away the "Free" in "Free Software" from others. I can't take my ball and go home, and you can't either.
This extra clause in the new GPL is _not_ political activism. It is a poorly-worded attempt to ensure a single path of circumventing the license will not be followed. I'd prefer them to simply say something like "any purpose which is supported by laws requiring that additional restrictions be placed on the distribution or modification of this software is disallowed in the regions where such laws have effect" [though I'd prefer it to be worded more clearly
All this is saying is: If using this for DRM would mean by law that someone else can't freely modify the program and turn it into somethin that isnt DRM, you can't use it for DRM. This would also cover crypto-export such.
The license as written doesnt even attempt to say what you can't
Attack of the insane invalid metaphor:
Bob Nobody creates a cake. He informs all that they are free to eat it. Tom Somebody decides he wants to have the cake, and so wishes to purchase the cake. Bob Nobody agrees that Tom Somebody may purchase the cake, provided that he not restrict anyone from eating it.
Guess where this is going.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Alice: Here is some software. You can use it for whatever you want. You can turn it into whatever you want. The only rule is that you must allow others to do the same with what you derive from the original.
Bob: What if I use it for preventing people from modifying it?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
+1, Terrifying
Tell me, pchan... you seem pretty blasé about this. Do you have any feelings about what you're doing? It's cool that you tell us about it, but is someone holding your dog hostage or something? Or are you just being very well paid? No personal qualms about what you're helping to bring about? Feel like it's inevitible, so it might as well be you doing it? I'm honestly curious.
I can also see that I'll be getting off the tech train as a professional in the years ahead... this new world that's coming just doesn't interest me. I'll remain a hobbyist with my old hardware that still does what I tell it to do, for as long as I can keep it running, but I'm not going to play this game. I'll go back to hammering nails for a living.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
Who at firefox started the whole 'switch to firefox or fucking die you infidel' attitude? It's not pleasant, and certainly doesn't help free software. The whole getfirefox project is just about indoctrination and brand-loyalty. So users start demanding websites are *firefox compatible* - which as bad a blow to standards as 'ie compatible'. If firefox really worked like a free software project, wouldn't there be more forks?
:)
Who would throw red paint over IE users? Sure, I may encourage and help a friend to install linux if they ask me about it, but nothing will ever come of insulting them. It's about open-mindedness - none but ourselves can set us free.
So onto DRM. The industry isn't *forcing* it onto consumers. They're consenting to it. We should warn them of the dangers and help them, but I wouldn't agree to burning down Sony. If need be, users will learn themselves in 10 years when they can't play any of their music.
AWWW get this one of my fish has had babies
DRM certainly will never stop piracy altogether, but if it stops any noticable amount of it, then it will increase the industry's profits
But DRM increases piracy. It has never kept a single song from appearing on P2P. All it does is mean that if someone wants to obtain better non-crippled proper MP3 format version of thr song, a version that can be played on any and all MP3 players, a version that can be played in WinAmp or any other music player with the rest of their music, if they want to be able to mix or modify the music, if they want to avoid all sorts of DRM hassles and restricts, if they want to do anything out of ordinary, then they have NO CHOICE but to resort to P2P.
By refusing to offer a non-crippled product, by refusing to offer the product that customers actually want to buy (MP3s), the real effect is that they are driving people resort to P2P to get that product.
No, DRM is not so much about piracy. DRM is about attempting to control the marketplace itself. An attempt to control retailers, an attempt to control players, an attempt to secure the cartel monopoly position, an attempt to control the consumers.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It is not just in the FSF, but a lot of interest groups have been expanding their range of "demands" in order to merge with other interest groups to get a bigger say. But there is a point where their interests get such a breath of topics they they don't have a chance to get what they want.
Some Examples.
For the Left we have.
"Environmental groups" (Mind you the environment is a big thing) which also supports legalized marijuana, or some others who for example will not support a company that makes a plastic that is BioDegradable uses much less fossil fuel and is just as cheap as normal plastic, just because they used bio-engineered Corn for the process.
On the Right
"Religion Groups" Where many started out just because they wanted Prayer in school. Now they expanded their policies stretching to Abortion, Gay Rights, and Making Christianity (Which for some odd reason doesn't include Catholics, who are Christian too) the recognized religion of the USA.
Now for these groups it is important to be non compromising on their ideas because compromise will only lead to so many loop legal loop holes that nothing will happen. But when you have such a wide set of demands for your group it makes it near impossible for them to gain any real head way except for perhaps a member of congress will give your group some lip service. If these groups sayed focused on only one topic they would be able to really get some headway in their work. But having such a wide breath of topics makes it impossible for them to make real headway.
As for FSF I think DRM is moving too far. While I oppose DRM myself I don't think it should be part of the FSF and as part of the GNU. Because I feel it starts bringing up more a dangerous presidencies where FSF who has in the most part a Good License model, but by telling people what programming jobs FSF Approved Applications can and Cant do gets scary. What will be next GNU 4. Any GNU Application cannot be used on a non GNU operating system or compiled using non GNU tools. GNU applications cannot be used for military application, or used in churches. Gnu Application cannot be used to calculate tax. Stick with the distribution model and let the programmers decided what they want the apps to do for good or bad. Of course a GNU DRM application will be very hard to program and keep working because people can change it to turn off DRM, but saying you cant try is just stupid.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
drm is evil and should be eliminated to the fiery pits hell where beta max burn th for ever n ever
So, when the "evil" does it, getting political is normal, but when the "good guys" do it, its "evangelical" ???
Do not forget the saying that goes "When the good keep silent, the bad wins the day".
Read radical news here
no? well then this statement is void
so, what millions of people are doing must be right, eh? well in 1933 millions of germans voted hitler, so this must have been a right decision too, according to this argumentation...
irrational argumentation - void!
the argument is again that DRM must be right, because millions of people buy the products - so again he saies the holocaust was a good idea, because millions of people voted for it...
has the author thought about the possibility that many people may not even know DRM or don't know how it harms them? he states "Convinced, perhaps, that average consumers are too stupid to know what's good for them" BUT doesn't go into that... you know 85% of all computer users use the internet explorer ALTHOUGH it is known to be the worst browser around (and security experts advise to use ANY OTHER BROWSER) so missing knowledge MIGHT be a reason for products being successful although they are known to have a bad quality...
yet I think the car-comparison is not that good - I'd say DRMed media players are more like navigation systems that don't contain cities that didn't pay a fee to the producer of the navigation system... if you don't try to go there, you'll never notice and the more popular the navigation system is, the more pressure is on the cities to pay the fee, because they can't afford to not-being on these maps... sure, let's all give up our freedom, as long as we get a cool-looking navigation-system for it... when the manufacturer rules the market then we'll see how reasonable priced the navigation-systems and the fees for the cities will stay...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
I think the author's primary point wasn't so much that he was surprised that the FSF was against DRM technology; I think its a very valid point. He was criticizing the self righteous, brute-force, way the FSF _communicated_ the point. Truly free software means letting those who write proprietary code write it freely. It would be a limitation to say that the 'spirit', so to speak, of free software ends when it is not in the FSF's curriculum of what's free and what's not.
Protesting like a gang of soccer moms is going to create an exception to the very mantra they've been speaking of for the last twenty years, and definitely is going to send the wrong signal to corporations such as Microsoft and the record labels.
In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights management) technologies, which first manifested itself in early drafts of Version 3 of the GPL (Gnu General Public License), seems now to have been elevated to the point of evangelical dogma.
That doesn't mean they're wrong.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
How exactly do you run an FSF free of evangelical dogma?
IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION:
My last italicied quote was:
confining government intervention in economic matters to regulating against force and fraud among market participant
That was not actually a quote from the parent poster, but a quote from the page he linked to. It was however, an accurate representation of the point he was making.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Parent post is why the free software foundations strong stance against DRM is important, though here is my take on things. For now I'm using OS X because sound and wireless just works, and there is no real direct substitute for Final Cut Pro or Photoshop, and as I pointed out in another response itunes will work with non DRMd mp3s and non DRM apple lossless. The minute DRM becomes mandatory though I'd wipe OS X and install a GNU OS on my G5. So please keep up a strong anti DRM stance FSF to me you are the back up if the DRM people try to radically restrict my freedom which they fortunately HAVEN'T been able to do up to this point. Perhaps my stance is a cop out but I think it's very realist. I save my extreme idealism for things that effect our environment or that cause human suffering. To me the computer is just a tool and that tool works well enough now, but mandatory DRM for music or ONLY being allowed to run certain operating systems, or say having to upgrade my monitor because the video stream is encrypted and the new video format doesn't play on the old monitor would be curtains to propitiatory software for me.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
I'm not sure it's the principle of DRM, per se, that the FSF opposes. What they oppose is the fact that current DRM implementations trample all over the legitimate fair-use rights of legitimate users, in the name of catching casual thieves. If a DRM scheme were to be devised that allowed complete and unfettered exercise of fair-use rights, I don't think the FSF would oppose that.
However, I'm skeptical that such a scheme will ever be devised by the mainstream media distributors, because I don't think they're really after trying to protect their existing rights. Existing law is more than sufficient for that. Instead, they want to take away the rights of legitimate users, so that they can generate new income streams by selling those rights back to us. I, for one, strongly oppose this.
Neil McAllister is so obviously lacking real arguments that he had to call the FSF dogmatic, evangelical etc. Just look at his ridiculous bullshit like "If I were to stoop to that level, I might describe the FSF as the "Fundamentalist Software Foundation." But why go there?". Yeah, you've stooped much lower already Allister, to the point of stupid flaming. I don't know why Infoworld would publish such crap, perhaps they were so desperate for slashdot traffic.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Slashdot-audience-focus-group jokes apart:
:-)
When I was single, everything I did with a sexual partner -- and everything she did with me -- could be repeated (or retried) with the next, without fear of being sued for the "Intellectual Property" of an interesting, insightful or even astounding sexual discovery.
At least that's how I learned the "Candelabro Italiano"
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Ya know, it would, perhaps, be better if some research was done on the contributing persons linked in the Subject line.
I took the time to look up everything I could find about Neil McAllister and it is obvious he is a Un*x baiter...and more than likely due to being injected with DOS.
It is obvious no mental floss was used in the posting of this article.
If you believe that you cannot change the laws and you choose civil disobedience, it should be done in public in front of the police station.
Disobeying the laws quietly at home is just cowardly.
Shae Erisson - ScannedInAvian.com
The FSF shouldn't be telling me to not use DRM because, oh well, it's not so bad. Everybody is using it already.
--
There, saved you a ten minute read.
Once you've chosen a utilitarian basis from which to act, it leads to a lot of judgement calls. In this case, which freedoms are more important. Most of the arguments between Democrat and Republican supporters resolve to this issue (BTW, this is not true for politicians, which seek a compromise between this and enlarging their, and their party's empire).
Because of these judgement calls, mathematical reasoning simply doesn't apply, although it may inspire. I speak as a mathematician, myself.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Wikileaks, no DNS
In order for consumers to choose not to buy the technology, they have to see that the technology is bad for them, and that requires information and object lessons.
The corporate strategies are pretty obvious: invest billions in confusing the consumer about the consequences of DRM, and make the technology pervasive before enabling the consumer-hostile functionality fully.
What the FSF is doing is the only thing opponents of DRM can do: it's trying to remind people that DRM imposes restrictions on them. And the FSF is trying to do its part to ensure that there are devices that do not support DRM because only then will consumers see that they are losing something.
And don't kid yourself: if DRM becomes standard and pervasive, there is no way in which it can be "boycotted". Art and culture are part of the human experience; you can boycott them no more than you can boycott the phone systtem, sidewalks, speech, or air.
This is not nearly as efficient as taxation, or a more competitive marketplace.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Yeah, I hope the "market" "sorts out" this Infoworld business too.
I suspect that this is more to do with advertising and monopoly. Media companies will "endorse" MS, and also refuse to support OSs that don't "play ball". Result: advantage, Gates. If MS didn't support DRM, there'd still be plenty of content. To all comers, and not just to MS.
Wikileaks, no DNS
This is an asinine article. Neil McAllister completely fails to understand what we mean when free software advocates talk about freedom: the freedom to do what you want with your own computer. It's as simple as that. The fundamental goal of Digital (Restrictions) Management is to prevent you from using your own computer to acomplish certain tasks (copying media) that it is otherwise perfectly capable of doing. It should be obvious to anyone who has taken the time to read and understand Stallman's basic arguments (which the author of this article clearly has not) that such DRM conflicts with the principals of free software. For DRM to work, the user must be forcibly prevented from circumventing such a scheme, and this is incompatible with the principal that the user should actually be in control of the hardware that they own.
I think it is important that the debate be properly framed. You bought and paid (lots of money I might add) for the computer sitting on your desk or the mp3 player in your pocket. You should be able to use it the way you want. This is what people mean by free as in freedom of speech, not free beer.
(As a side not, iTunes is not the best example of a DRM music scheme due to the fact that they allow burning music to unencrypted audio CD, which can then be re-ripped and reencoded. Stallman himself has stated that although inconvenient, this was an acceptable compromise.)
Yes, universally used DRM will eliminate free software and form a basis for universal censorship and information control. Even the author agrees to that, but he thinks that something else can and will happen all by itself and we don't need these "political" people. It's very easy to see how wrong he is.
The threat is as real as the pressure M$, the BSA, the RIAA, the MPAA, book publishers and news publishers can put on device and law makers. How many "normal" people will chose software freedom over "popular" music and movies? Look at the way the RIAA ran music shops: RIAA exclusive or no RIAA at all! It's not that people are stupid, it's that the choice they will be given is unacceptable: let us control anything that's a media player or you don't get any media. Right now, while the big publishers are behaving and few people know about alternative media, it's easy for people to get trapped by convenience. If nothing is done now, lawmakers might remove all choice by mandating DRM in all devices. Then the nascent free media movement can be crushed and the radio empires will survive their technical obsolescence and be able to push down restrictions analog media never had.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Okay, let's see if I have this straight. The Author lampoons the FSF executive director for a bad choice of analogy:
In a statement regarding the demonstration, FSF executive director Peter Brown said, "A media player that restricts what you can play is like a car that won't let you steer" -- a false analogy so patently absurd as to be laughable to a grade-school student.
Then later in the same article gives this analogy:
No DRM system ever told an artist what notes to play or what lyrics were OK to sing. But the FSF seems intent on doing just that.
Seems like we are missing one more analogy. It's right on the tip of my tongue. Something about kettles, pots, and the color black. I'm sure it will come to me...
Ryel,
Don't buy DRM entertainment if you do not want to. You are free to make a voluntary choice either way. If entertainment is released with DRM that you don't want then don't consume it.
Likewise, you are free today to produce entertainment and release it without any DRM. Here is an exercise for you: produce a movie that millions of people want to see and then release it without any DRM. That's your free and voluntary choice as a producer. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything they don't freely choose to do.
If anyone really thinks that DRM is or should be outside the FSF's agenda, he should read The Right to Read.
Absolutely, but it's important to keep in mind that proposed GPLv3's anti-DRM clause is about something else, something less "radical" (not that I disagree with RMS here) and more subtle.
I guess I can't take issue with the author of the article for not understanding the proposed GPLv3's position on this, because most of the Free Software community misunderstands it as well. Everyone thinks that the GPL's anti-DRM provision is intended to prevent the protection of content. That's because when we discuss DRM we're usually talking about content (music, movies and, in the case of "The Right to Read", books). But the GPLv3 anti-DRM provision has nothing to do with content. Not directly, at least.
GPLv3 aims to prevent the use of DRM to protect code, to ensure that it remains open to modification. Imagine a device that ships with embedded GPL'd code, but uses a digital signature to verify that only "authorized" versions of the GPL'd code can run. Under the terms of GPLv2, the maker of the device can ship the device with a copy of the code and be in compliance, even though the device prevents the user from making use of some of the freedoms provided by the GPL. Specifically, the user cannot modify the code, because the modified code will not run on the device.
The same opportunity to limit GPL users' freedom exists even without hardware support. If the GPL software runs in a closed software environment that checks the code's signature before running it, the same opportunity/problem (depending on your point of view) arises.
So, GPLv3 requires that if you distribute the code, and if keys are required to use, modify, copy or distribute the code, you have to provide the keys as well. To emphasize the point: the keys that protect the *code* from being used in the ways the GPL allows must be provided. Otherwise, code signing can be used to perform an end run around the GPL, taking away the freedoms the GPL is intended to ensure. This is precisely in line with GPLv2's requirement that if you distribute the code you have an obligation to ensure that the recipient has all of the legal rights specified by the GPL, but taking it a step further to prevent the user's rights from being limited technologically.
This means that you can, in fact, write software that implements DRM protection of content and publish it under the terms of the proposed GPLv3, without providing keys. It would be a dumb thing to do, of course, since users could modify the code to defeat the DRM. Unless, of course, the GPL'd code could be locked against modification, something GPLv2 allows and the proposed revision would disallow. So I guess you could say the proposed GPLv3 would make it impossible to write *useful* GPL'd DRM code, and I'm sure RMS considers that a good thing, but that's not actually the purpose of the anti-DRM provision.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Both you and the author have mistaken computers and media for free markets. The author tells us:
Clearly, despite DRM's widely discussed inadequacies and regular aggravations, more than a few consumers are willing to put up with it when the price is right. That's just basic free-market economics. ... [customers will flock] -- to non-DRM competitors such as eMusic, perhaps, or even to plain old-fashioned CDs. For DRM to fail in the entertainment industry, all that needs to happen is for customers to choose not to buy it, which in turn should convince artists not to use it.
The immediate threat is DMCA style laws which mandate DRM. It should be obvious to you and Neil that no one will have a choice if that happens. You should also realize that it will happen if you smugly tell people they will still have choices and be comfortable when such laws are passed. The infamous "broadcast flag" is the tip of the iceburg which must be fought now so you and I will continue to have free hardware in the future. Technological restrictions and bad laws gave us a world where three music publishers had a monopoly on public broadcast. DRM will be much worse than that.
Even without further rotten laws, the computer market is not free as the Microsoft anti-trust trial so magnificently proved. Not much has changed since then. Google and Dell are making a few daring deals that like a Netscape deja vu. Rather than showing freedom, this only shows how locked in the vendors really are. The M$ tax is firmly entrenched and has even been pushed out onto universities and schools through student fees - those with the time to avoid it are often taxed twice!
No one wants DRM. He touts iTunes as evidence that people can live with DRM and at the same time boasts about the nascent creative commons and free media movements. He fails to mention WMP, which shows that people really want nothing to do with the terms the RIAA would like to force on you. CC and free music should be a clue to him that artists and customers crave a choice. The artists are willing to take risks to have that choice. Customers are eating it up. It's really what people want.
Vista will sneak in far more than people know. XP and WMP are already less than people want. Vista will be worse and it will extend that sorry lack of choice out by hardware. That's what this protest was all about. There's nothing wrong with the FSF saying that DRM is bad and that no one but big publishers really want it. They are right as usual.
If the market is to work, people have to be informed. That's not going to happen if we sit on our asses and listen to our iPods and think that everything is OK. At it's best, it's not OK. People are not stupid. Given the right information, they will indeed avoid Vista and DRM.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
glad to see slashdot covers both parts of the political agenda. the right and the right.
Lessing opposes DRM and sees it as a subversion of reasonable laws. His method is to demand accountability and freedom. He wants artist intentions to be obvious, but he does not want to force this by technological means and more than he would outlaw pointy objects because someone could use them for murder. DRM puts lawmaking and policy into the hands of those who control DRM and takes it away from government and the people.
As an example of this subversion consider the defacto perpetual copyright that scrambled content provides. Your laws require content to enter the public domain after 70 years or so. Scrambled content and media obsolescence thwart that entirely. The kinds of DRM that Vista has for you are much stronger and have the same kind of result.
Moderate DRM opposition turns out to be complete opposition. Lessing backs the FSF and Defective by Design, as you might see by visiting his blog. There is no software freedom under someone else's dongle.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Otherwise it wouldn't work. It is meant to just blend in, until like Sony's rootkit, it causes a major problem.
IF DRM was voluntary, it would be seperable from the media. An opt-in screen at the beginning askeing if you want to insure that this product is never copied or viewed on an inappropriate machine. That is voluntary.
When you hide it on my CD or DVD, it is not a voluntary acceptance.
Neil should step up to the plate and tell us all how the DRM in Vista is not a threat. He can't but that's really what he tried to argue.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
When you have to use so many charged words in support of your argument then we know you are just a fudding. It is one way of getting more hits on your web site.
...
When you have to invoke PETA as a contrivance to trash the FSF then I'm afraid you've totally lost any credibility you have to comment on matters technological, at least in my eyes.
Free Software Foundation: Free as in "do what I say
key words:
alarming, crusade, demagoguery, disappointed, evangelical dogma, God is on its side, histrionics, hysterical activism, PETA, insidious, misplaced neopolitical activism, moralistic, name-calling, politicization, radicalism, regrettable spiral, troubling, unilaterally, verboten
--
ps: How's the 'Linux flipping phenomenon` proceeding?
davecb5620@gmail.com
Apart from whether this is actually and always the case in a practical sense, it is beside the issue the parent was reacting on.
;-) This is, because it is deemed indivuals have inherent rights, including consumer-rights. Those may vary, but I don't know of any western country where they are non-existant.
First off, he was right: slavery in ancient times was far from always 'involuntary'; they often sold themselves. So his analogy still stands.
Your argumentation of "if it's in the contract, and you signed it voluntarely, why shouldn't it be allowed" is a typical example of anglo-saxon capitalistic mentality which is rampant under some 'vocal' active (usually USA) slashdotters. This notion is, of course, absurd: from the starting premise the conclusion does not follow, young Jedi-knight.
If it were, then contracts where you agree to go into slavery, or you agree to torture, or the medical removal of your brain or arm, would all be allowable too. It isn't. (At least not in europe
For instance, when you buy a computer, and you sign an agreement in which you wave all rights of returning your computer even if it's defect, in the typical USA-vision I mentionned above, one would claim that's valid. Bzzz...wrong! (At least in europe).
Here you have *by law* the right to return it - even without any reason (if within 7 days of purchase). And the seller may write in his contracts or agreements whatever he wants, pages and pages untill he turns bleu, and the buyer may willingly sign all of them...it *does not matter*. All provisions which are not according to the laws (mostly consumer laws, in this case) are null and void.
It's that simple, and it clearly shows that the dogma of 'if you sign it, it is valid and should be allowed' is false, even in the USA, I suspect. Therefor, the question is not any longer one of absolute capitalistic/marketing reasoning and rationalisation, but rather the observable fact that there are limits imposed on what one can put in a contract (or at least, what is enforcable), even when someone signs it voluntarily.
Ergo, in response to your question 'why shouldn't it be allowable': this can not purely be answered by claiming 'because it's in the contract and it's signed'. For instance, one could argue that it shouldn't be allowable because it's better for society, or for consumers, etc. - just as some other provisions aren't allowed already.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
The FSF's beef with DRM is that it is currently used to restrict the fair use rights of users and can potentially be used to put the vendor in complete control of the computer purchase by the user. It can be used for anything from protecting music to restricting what programs you can run on your machine. It undermines the idea that the USER is in control of the computer, not the companies which make media.
DRM is an attempt by big companies to control the ability of the machine to make, distribute and view media because, since you can now make as many perfect digital copies as you like, they can no longer control what happens to thier content. It is because thier business model is failing that this is happening and they want to put it on everyone else by forcing you to buy crippled computers.
You can call me fanatical, or "evangelical" or anything else you like, but my opinions are my own. DRM is a malignancy and needs to be fought.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Indeed, for you Americans I would think that your greatly admired "founding fathers" could be considered as zealots. They stood up for a cause that went against the way people were used to thinking. They gathered support, instilled new ideas, and eventually won (well, until latter governments started defecating on their works).
Just because something is popular and accept doesn't make it right. Slavery was wrong and yet well-accepted in its time.
It takes a little zealoty, that undying focus on what you (and those with you) believe is right, to make great change happen. Zealotism does not make one right or wrong. The path you follow does.
We don't have to imagine such a device, there's one in my living room.
TiVo take Linux and use it to create their platform. They release the code as required, but it's utterly useless, because I can't modify the boot sequence of my TiVo to (say) make it start sshd--it's all locked down with DRM built into the hardware.
I have a perfectly legitimate, legal reason to want to be able to modify the code: I'd like to be able to SSH in to my TiVo from a remote location and tell it to record something.
Thus TiVo have taken GPL code, and prohibited me from modifying it and using it myself on hardware I own. That's exactly what the GPL was supposed to prevent from happening.
[And as for "the market will sort it out" claims--show me the satellite or cable company that provides a DVR that's open and I'll switch. And no, MythTV isn't a sensible option, because that involves decoding the MPEG stream to analog video and then re-encoding it back to MPEG again.]
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Only one person needs to break open the safe, thereafter the content can be shared freely with everyone, and shared in a matter so that each person gets the entire contents of the safe.
Stopping 99% of all people from opening the safe is no good if the last 1% then share the result freely. It doesn't actually matter very much (if at all!) that perhaps 10% of the population are capable of, and willing to, make a mp3 from a normal CD while perhaps only 0.1% are capable of, and willing to, DivX from a drm-protected DVD.
You don't need to look at theory. Facts will do. 95% of all DVDs contain drm, in the form of CSS and region-coding. This has as far as anyone can tell more or less zero impact on the availability of movies online. The chief restraint seems to be that for many people downloading GBs of data still takes time, and watching movies on the PC is less attractive. This *used* to be true for mp3s.
Today ? What is more convenient if you want to listen to the music ? A unencumbered high-quality mp3 or a crappy non-cd that won't play in the car or in the cd, and that is a hassle to rip to a more portable format ?
Whiney Mac Fanboy and Trip Master Monkey never post in the same thread. Their posting style is remarkably similar, and both have a penchant for getting first post. I'm just sayin'...
* Well, you could if you're really smart, but in the U.S. this is prohibited by law.
What law prevents me from running software of my own on hardware I have purchased?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is a good starting point.
CDBaby
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
The author of TFA seems to have let his emotional response to the FSF's fanaticism color his logic. But I think everyone is missing something important.
I'm not a huge fan of the FSF but I'm even less of a fan of DRM--mostly for the restrictions on my choices for fair use.
RMS and company are a bit fanatic for my taste but they make a good point. In fact, I'm more sympathetic to their cause after reading their site, but I digress...
I think the whole DRM movement is still in its infancy. The MPAA and RIAA are convinced that computers (or their users) are responsible for undermining their business model. They still think inside the old schema where the very nature of their business was completely proprietary: Vinyl records could only be played on a record player. VHS, Beta, Cassette, and 8-Track tapes could only be played in their respective players. They weren't too concerned about piracy because it was usually poor quality and too expensive to reproduce in large quantities. Rights management was built into the very type of media on which they sold their products.
The computer comes along and people figure out ways to digitize analog and manage their own digital data (ripping CDs and DVDs). Not a bad deal at first because bandwidth is limited to 28kbps and it's kind of tedius.
Then, BAM! One day, the MP3 craze hits and Napster is all the rage. People are trading MP3 files left and right. The RIAA (and Lars Ulrich) go ape sh*t because they no longer control the media on which their art is distributed. Emerging disruptive technologies: sink or swim.
The entertainment industry is still scrambling to find a way to regain control of their products. They have not really embraced the computer as a converged media player/manager. They still think in terms of appliances such as DVD and CD players.
DRM is the result of old school thinkers trying to shoe-horn their old paradigms into emerging technologies. There isn't really a plot to take away your rights or control your computer--they are trying to put Humpty back together. Since the first wax cylinders went on sale, the recording industry had a very simple business model for distribution. This is how they think.
The computer is not an appliance (yet) and they haven't quite figured out how to think on the same plane as RMS and his liberated data. So, the RIAA/MPAA come up with all kinds of kooky ways to make it fit--the infamous Sony rootkit is a good example of their misunderstanding of the "new" digital market.
Equally clueless are the hordes of people who think music should be free (free as in stolen beer). These types of people don't think they should have to pay for anything so they "liberate" music from CDs (and now video from DVDs, too) and distribute them indiscriminately around the net. Swapping one song for another, to them, is a barter not a copyright violation.
Unfortunately, these digital miscreants who want "free" as in five-finger discount are often associated with the likes of RMS and his merry men who want "Free" as in liberty.
What RMS and the FSF want is the ability to use purchased digital enterainment anyway one wants on his computer. Ironically, what the RIAA and MPAA want is remarkably the same: they want you to purchase digital entertainment and use it. The difference is that the media companies don't trust you. They think that all the people stealing their products should be paying. That might be true, but they are probably people who wouldn't pay anyway so there really isn't any lost revenue.
Unfortunately, they think DRM is the answer but it only irritates computer users who have to jump through hoops to use something they believe they paid for.
However, as the author points out, it doesn't seem to bother consumers who use "appliances" such as the iPod.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
CDBaby
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Yes, it will sort itself out. You know why? Because people, including those like Mr. Stallman, will make a stink and raise awareness.
I mean, you can say that about anything in history: it will sort itself out. But that's no reason to avoid action. The "sorting itself out" is a result of peoples' action. A more accurate statement would be "everything that is a problem brings about resistance, and if large enough the resistance overcomes the problem". But that doesn't make much of an impact because it's so obvious and it implies action and responsibility on the part of the writer and listener. So we'll always here someone like this guy who is essentially saying "let someone else make the free market the work".
Cheers.
In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights management) technologies...
Ohhhhh, you mean Digital Restrictions Management. Yea, defective by design. What else did you have to say?
it ensures that they will have no beneficial effect.
Clear, Dark Skies
All this "awareness raising" does is piss people off and harden their opinions - against you.
Persuasion is one thing, but the ridiculous protest strategies adopted by greenpeace, peta and now the fsf only make them the targets of ridicule.
Clear, Dark Skies
The first thing I can't figure out is what possibly possessed you to entitle an anti-FSF, pro-DRM piece with the words "Free as in do what I say".
The irony, which I'm sure I don't have to point out to you, is that FSF has been supportive of the rights of computer users to have control over their computers and the software and data that is on them. Meanwhile, DRM specifically and purposefully exists in order to control what you can do with data.
So I must assume that you got confused in combining the words "do what I say" with the name of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Perhaps you got your TLAs confused and really meant to associate "do what I say" with the acronym "DRM". Because that would make sense.
I don't know why I'm bothering to write, because I'm sure you must know this -- DRM is about limitation, FSF is about no limitation -- and yet you managed to switch the seats and slur FSF as the seekers of restriction. By inferred converse, this must mean that DRM is simply a beacon of liberty for you.
I think the problem is that you don't seem to see free software as a good thing because it gives individuals control over their computers, but because it does good things to the market. The philosophical questions of whether people should be free in their computers is (ironically enough) apparently not important to the modern libertarian; rather the only thing that matters is what the market does.
But the flaw in your market argument betrays the idea that maybe you're not really pro-free software at all. You argue that iTunes DRM must be okay, and not a challenge to user liberty, because the end-user market is gobbling it up. Now, if market acceptance was your true yardstick of good/bad, you couldn't in the same article say that free software (i.e. "free as in the concept of liberty") was also good -- because the end-user market *isn't* gobbling it up; they still use IE and Office and AIM and so on.
So how can you possibly use market acceptance as a yardstick for DRM but then not for free software when you're trying to compare the two? Clearly there is something inconsistent here. Clearly market acceptance means little in terms of real value. Actually, I'd really like to see you argue that there is any at all correlation between market acceptance and personal liberty. People aren't really all that big on personal liberty these days, not if market acceptance (not just in software, but in everything from CPUs to media players to gasoline to presidents) is any indication.
iTunes doesn't succeed in the market because it champions personal liberty. It succeeds because it has a large catalog of popular music and has lots of accessories and cross-branding. Personal liberty doesn't have anything to do with it. Like I said, personal liberty is not really all that high on people's priorities -- not as long as they can find a few things they are free to do (e.g. download music at a buck a song flat that they can do less with than they can a CD at roughly the same per-song price).
Now in closing, and just in case they didn't require Intro to Logic at your J-school, here's how the FSF-DRM thing breaks down:
* FSF fundamentally supports end-users' ability to have complete freedom over their computers and devices including the bits and bytes on them.
* Therefore, FSF fundamentally opposes restricting end-users' complete freedom over their computers and the data on them.
* DRM fundamentally exists in order to restrict end-users' complete freedom over their computers and the data on them.
* Therefore, FSF fundamentally opposes DRM.
It makes sense. That is, as long as your logic is consistent.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
And property is theft.
Without copyright, there is no price mechanism.
Clear, Dark Skies
If I want to use DRM for some of my data, why shouldn't I be able to? It's just a technology, a tool, like anything else. Say I'm doing some designing for a business, and I want to show them what my design looks like but not allow them to print it out (because I suspect they might steal it and use it without paying me.) How am I going to accomplish that without DRM?
The problem is that the complaint is too broad... it's not DRM that's the issue; DRM is just a technology, equally usable by everybody to solve their problems. If I want to use DRM for something, I should be able to, and screw the FSF if they think I shouldn't.
It reminds me of the people on this site and elsewhere who protest against RFID tags. RFID tags are harmless; they're just barcodes you can read from a short distance. What they're *really* protesting against is tracking consumers-- but you can track consumers without using RFID tags; Safeway has been doing it for years now.
Comment of the year
For DRM to fail in the entertainment industry, all that needs to happen is for customers to choose not to buy it, which in turn should convince artists not to use it.
For tainted meat to fail in the beef industry, all that needs to happen is for customers to choose not to buy it, which in turn should convince meat-packers not to use it.
For snake oil to fail in the pharmaceutical industry, all that needs to happen is for customers to choose not to buy it, which in turn should convince traveling salesman not to hawk it.
Consumers won't find out until later that they've made a mistake. Regulating that kind of schlock is what the government is for.
Moe Ron.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Actually, you have violated the GPL. Here is the relevant passage:
The creation of any cryptographic keys is clearly a step in the compilation/installation of the executable. To comply with the license to redistribute you need to provide a means for users to generate such a key or a means to bypass checking the key.
Obviously you've never tried to listen to iTMS tracks with anything other than Apple products. Apple updated iTunes to version 6, and in the process made it impossible to convert M4P files short of burning to CD and ripping again, which 1) is a PITA for any even moderately sized collection, and 2) causes further degradation of the audio quality. Yes, I'm annoyed. This means I can't listen to my own music that I've already bought and paid for on anything but what Apple wants me to use. This is so far beyond reasonable that it makes me right royally cheesed off.
Incidentally, if anyone knows of some other means of turning M4P into MP3 or OGG besides JHymn, by all means let me know. JHymn has so far tried to play it honourably, using Apple's own license data to unlock the DRM, but the upgrade to ver 6 has rendered JHymn dead in the water. This is exactly this kind of idiocy by the powers that be that push regular folk towards piracy. Dammit, I already paid for it, don't you dare have the gall to try to tell me what to do with it now. Copyright, fine, but if I want to play a music file using someone else's player, I should be able to. Copyright is now being "extended" into a catch-all legal excuse for monopolies, and Orwell and Rand are looking more and more prescient as time passes. I long for the days gone by when they looked merely paranoid.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Are you suggesting that it is impossible to sell public domain material? So there are, for example, no works by William Shakespeare or Charles Dickens available at your local bookstore? And before copyright laws no music or art was produced?
Free markets always will find a price mechanism. In the absence of copyright prices would be much lower than they are now, and many people (with vested interests) would strongly dislike that. There may also be a legitimate argument that artists need some form of government subsidy, and that copyrights are a good way to provide that subsidy. But it's certainly not true that in the absence of copyright all "content" would be free.
Sure, but read some of the other numbers to put that one in perspective:
GDP (official exchange rate): $12.47 trillion (2005 est.)
GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 1%, industry: 20.7%, services: 78.3%
So that $927B that we export is only around 7.5%, if I did my math right, of our total economic production. The other 92.5% of our GDP we're basically selling to each other inside the country in exchange for each other's labor: one great big service-economy circle jerk.
The other issue that doesn't bode well with a lot of people is the current account deficit: our quality of life is built on imports ($1.727 trillion USD of 'em a year), and to most people, a situation where your cash outflow exceeds your inflow for a significant length of time doesn't seem sustainable.
I'd say the average American probably doesn't think about these things too often, but most people are dimly aware of them, in a sort of vaguely unsettling way. At the core of the American body politic's psyche is an key insecurity: what if those clothes that the politicians sold them aren't really there at all?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The law allows DRM, but makes it illegal to circumvent.
Like a cat and mouse game, but where the mouse is shot by a big elephant (the gov't) if it moves.
Of course, the mouse gets eaten by the cat or shot by the elephant - can't say it is a fair setup.
The law allows DRM, doesn't require it to allow fair use, and by making it illegal to circumvent even for otherwise legal purposes, makes DRM systems have the force of law. The DRM system is not just a technical obstacle, but a de facto piece of private legislation, which has been given the power to make otherwise legal acts illegal and actually does so, and the gov't enforces it.
The market and technical solution to DRM would include circumvention technology, but this is outlawed by the DMCA.
So much for the market when it is illegal to compete. Heck even a 3rd party printer cartridge company got sued for circumventing the printer's proprietary lockout of 3rd party products. Would you want it to be a felony to by aftermarket parts for your car too?
As long as the DMCA exists, there will need to be action against, including anti-DRM clauses in free software - perhaps make it so those clauses only exist while circumvention is illegal - or say in the software license that if someone uses the code in a DRM system, they automatically authorize under the DMCA any actions to access and copy the content, unless those actions are infringing.
Then the license will only be undoing the DMCA DRM provisions, and they can legally still have DRM and still play cat and mouse with DRM vs anti-DRM technologies. Except now the mouse (us) is allowed to run from them.
The GPL is needed to prevent harm from copyright, the new anti-DRM provisions (in some form) are needed to prevent harm from the DMCA.
Allowing the content cartels to use the government to prosecute actions which used to be legal (fair use, part of the what is needed to keep copyright a fair balance and thus constitutional) is merchantalism and fascism, not capitalism.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
A big flaw in utilitarianism is a consistent bias towards the calculable; no wonder statists love it so much! At least "the greatest freedom..." contains a countervailing bias towards non-interference.
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-- nt --
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In "point 1", "argument" should be "market".
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
Just for once, I'd like to see someone who has decided to use the stick of 'terrible things happening in the third world somewhere' or 'world poverty' or whatever to beat on Free Software activists ('haha, your puny GPL isn't freeing child slaves in Africa, now, is it?') to explain to us what exactly they're accomplishing in this area.
Ok, so sometimes the cyber-activists are a bit blinkered in their rhetoric, raving on about 'greatest threats to freedom' in a way that suggests that they're not always putting things in a Proper Global Perspective. But it seems like an awfully frequent strategy to take cheap shots at these guys for not solving the problem of world hunger, dictatorships in Third World countries and man's exploitation of man in general.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to castigate our local historic buildings preservation society members for failing to work on eliminating parasitic diseases in Africa.
Those laws aren't on the books as of now - and in any case they have no more place being there than laws forbidding DRM. They're not the issue, here. Moreover, the only reason MS and Dell and Google control so much marketshare is because what they give the consumers is within the bounds of what they're willing to tolerate. Truly, highly restrictive DRM falls outside of this range, and you simply cannot sell what people don't want.
...but is it art?
What happened when you got married that changed this?
I had no other partners, period. Call me old-fashioned.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Personally, I love what the EFF is doing and gave them $100 so they can keep on keeping on.
FREEDOM!
"By abandoning social and economic arguments in favor of a moral one, the FSF is in effect telling us that God is on its side."
Here the author of this article tries to claim that the anti-DRM stance is based on a faith based argument. What a load of crap. If anything the idea that free-market-solves-all-problems belief that that author displays fits the moralistic faith based argument mold. At least RMS cites REASONS for being anti-DRM. This author seemingly believes that "market success" == "moral", what a naive notion.
These studies are called "elections".
Oh, and also "history".
And, finally, wasting your energy on something that actively hurts your cause is, in fact, worse than doing nothing at all.
Here's a hint: People who change the world are the people who persuade other people to agree with them. People who rant, rave, and demonize those who disagree with them simply ensure that what they want will never happen.
Clear, Dark Skies
The companies that publish public domain books fully intend to realise a profit.
Yes, yes, they do. But I notice that you deliberately skipped over the point - which is that the creators of those books won't make a red cent.
Clear, Dark Skies
the rabble who damage the message with the leaders who, through their emphasis on moral persuasion, convinced people to change despite their abhorrence of the rabble.
There's a reason we celebrate men like MLK and Ghandi while consigning others to a footnote of history.
Clear, Dark Skies
Dickens and Shakespeare are both dead. I don't think they give a damn.
Tickle-down is meant to redistribute wealth; I was simply saying that:
Taxation achieves other things than redistributing wealth, this is true, but that is in addition to its effect on wealth redistribution, so you've completely failed to defect my point that it is superior to trickle-down.
A more competitive marketplace means that there is less profit to be had, as more value is delivered to the customer, which again is superior to trickle-down, which is why it is vital to have regulation that limits monopolies.
Yes, both poor and rich spend money; trickle-down simply put buffers on the process: there is an equilibrium that isn't one person with all the wealth.
The point that I was trying to make was that almost anything is superior to trickle-down (bar old-fashioned taxation of the people for the benefit of the court and gentry); it works, insofar as it does, at a pretty slow pace. There are better ways to achieve its purpose: redistribution.
That it doesn't work well enough doesn't mean that it doesn't function at all. I was simply attempting to move away from hyperbole.
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My rules of argument tend to be: avoid ad homenium, and challenge hyperbole. This isn't about being on the left or right, but simply about undoing positive feedback loops, so that people are more likely to weigh things properly, and arrive at superior answers.
Politically, I am centrist on the economic axis, and libertarian on the social axis, and I agree that trickle-down is usually treated as an excuse, rather than just being a background effect, however, I prefer to assume goodwill in argument, for occasionally even bad people have good ideas.
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