Protesting Apple's DRM

tedet writes "On the heels of the recent DRM news from Bruce Perens, the UK Parliament, and the Norwegian Omsbudman, Defective By Design is planning a flash protest this coming Saturday targeting Apple Stores throughout the United States. Defective by Design is targeting Apple because '[a]s the largest distributor of DRM infected technology, Apple has set a new low in the mistreatment of our freedoms.' We can expect more hazmat suits, and they created some art specific to this action. Hopefully these direct actions by Defective by Design will get the U.S. up-to-speed with its continental counterparts." (Of course, some people are happy with Apple's DRM as a compromise which helped legitimize online music sales.)

Comments

Yes it's DRM, but...

[HRH King Lerxst]

Since Apple's implementation is the least obtrusive and most user friendly, does it make since to protest? Why not go after more draconian DRM?

Re:Yes it's DRM, but...

[ElleyKitten]

Since Apple's implementation is the least obtrusive and most user friendly, does it make since to protest? Why not go after more draconian DRM?

Because they believe that all DRM is bad. Maybe it doesn't seem so bad now, but once people are used to the "friendly" DRM, then the less and less friendly DRM will be more palatable, and pretty soon everything you do on a computer is controled by the "content providers", kinda like in this scenerio. I'm not sure if it'll get that bad, but a little DRM can go a long way.

Re:Yes it's DRM, but...

[Incongruity]

oh i see, DRM's fine so long as the software is easy to use... riiight..

To a point, yes, actually. DRM is hated so much by many people because it makes software very difficult to use even when you're not doing anything that would violate anyone's rights. If someone could offer a mystical, magical DRM solution that never so much as made a peep unless the user was actually (and let's say blatantly) violating copyright and not protected by fair use exemptions, etc. etc. and it was 100% accurate, the only people who would care would be those who are breaking the copyright law (as to the validity/fairness of those laws, I'll leave that for another time...) because everyone else would not even know the DRM software was there... And that's almost what Apple's DRM software does. I've only been aware of it once and that was when I had made a few too many copies of one of my playlists that contained iTMS purchased songs (which I was, in fact, backing up (mmm hmm)).

Now where Apple's DRM scheme fails the usability metric is in that music protected by it is unusable with other music players/systems -- that's a huge crimp in usability but at the moment it's mitigated by the fact that Apple makes the best (IMHO) portable players out there and they dominate the market so in practical terms, a minority of people are affected by this. Nevertheless, as I said, this does make Apple's DRM scheme fail my usability test and therefore it's short of that perfect ideal, of course.

This is misdirected

[therealking]

DRM exists because the RIAA wants it there. Apple is contractually bound to sell thier music with DRM on it. They can't just remove it at thier own discresion.

Go protest the RIAA membership companies, oh wait then you'd have to deal with the real problem. Nevermind.

What is the point?

[sakusha]

If you want to protest, the usual method is by "voting with your feet." That doesn't mean marching in the streets, it means walking out and choosing another vendor. If you don't like iTunes DRM, then don't use it. Buy something else, like an unprotected CD and rip it yourself.