EFF Gets Animated About DRM with The Corruptibles

Lurker McLurker writes "An animation from the EFF shows DRM technology as a group of supervillans who aim to invade your home, interfere with your devices and stop you from using your digital media the way you want to, even if it is legitimate. Doesn't say anything about the subject most of us wouldn't know, but a great link to send to your friends as an introduction to the issue."

Comments

Analog Hole

[Feneric]

I think I personally would have visualized the character of "Analog Hole" as a lot older... certainly not a kid.

Re:Analog Hole

[Kjella]

Well, that part didn't really deal with the "analog hole" at all. She was trying to copy a short clip from a DVD - aka "fair use", but on a computer you're normally dealing with digital copies. Nevermind that audio/broadcast flag are anti-consumer, analog hole is pro-consumer and something they are trying to eliminate. Then again it's a teaser, not trying to be technically accurate.

Anyway, the concept of analog "hole" only makes sense in the context of trying to stop digital copies. If we say A is an analog copy and D is digital, we started out with:
AAAAAAAAAAAAA = crap

Then we got CDs, but there was noone who had CD burners at the time:
DAAAAAAAAAAAA = crap

Nobody gave a damn that there was an "analog hole", I don't think the concept even existed. Then everybody and their mother got computers and CD burners, and suddenly you got all-digital copies:
DDDDDDDDDDDDD = perfect

Then they started inventing DRM, and got that protected through the DMCA. That was supposed to stop digital copying, with varying degrees of success. However, in those cases where they succeeded you still had the analog hole:
DADDDDDDDDDDD = near perfect

So the concept of an "analog hole" is very young, because it makes absolutely no sense without digital copies and DRM.

progress stops at the cost of capitalism

[yagu]

Wasn't a free market and capitalism supposed to drive innovation and technology? Oh wait, yeah, Microsoft, never mind.

Really, reading some of these proposed laws the clear message from the RIAA/MPAA is, "To ensure our continued hand-in-the-cookie-jar obscene money making machine, we demand the government enact protective legislation." Guess what? They're "gettin' 'er done"! Innovative ideas and extensions and forks of cool, useful, for-the-betterment-of-man technology fall by the wayside by fiat, at the entertainment industry's prompt.

Again, ignoring the thesis for the moment that increased use of all of these digital technologies actually serve the entertainment industry spurring new growth in unexpected demographics, the new and improved technology traditionally has been the keystone of other new technologies. Often, as mentioned in a recent slashdot article, new directions are discovered accidentally. Squelch digital devices and you squelch potential new and rich fields of devices.

The RIAA and MPAA, what a bunch of fucktards.

Re:progress stops at the cost of capitalism

[Kaimelar]

As a citizen, you're supposed to just suck it down and shut up.

Corporations don't see people as "citizens" anymore. We're not even their customers -- we're consumers. Language always gives one away.

Re:progress stops at the cost of capitalism

[asuffield]

Corporations don't see people as "citizens" anymore. We're not even their customers -- we're consumers. Language always gives one away.

This is very true. It's always a good idea to see what a corporation calls you.

If you are a client, then they think of you as an integral part of the process. You are involved in the development of whatever they are selling to you, and it is built around your needs. Outsourcing companies, good hotels, and lap dancers think like this.

If you are a customer, then they think of you as an individual who makes a take-it-or-leave-it decision about their product. They will attempt to make as many people as possible want to take it, but won't worry too much about missing a few around the edges. Still, they need to keep you happy and won't do something that's bad for you without a really good reason. The good ISPs and expensive high street stores think like this.

If you are a consumer, then they think of you as tied up, prone, on the floor, while they defecate their products onto you and then send you an invoice. It doesn't matter what you think, you don't get to make a choice. The big media companies think like this. So do the telephone carriers, and most other monopolies.

Subtitles

[Rekolitus]

I think this is a good idea, but I really wish more people would put subtitles on their flash videos, the EFF no exception.

Seriously, how hard would it be to spend some 10 minutes adding subtitles?

I do like the idea, though.

Many people just dont get it!

[rehashed]

I have shown this clip to a few colleagues, and they just dont understand how these things effect them.

Talking about HDTV, mixing down from Digital Radio, and Digitizing commercial products for school projects is not the way to appeal to the mass consumer market.

Recording TV shows and making a favorites CD out of your music collection are more accessble principles to the mass market, and these are what should be highlighted.

Re:To One Side

[crhylove]

Now see, I had mod points today, and unfortunately there isn't a mod "wrong", otherwise I'd have used it right away.

DRM IS WRONG. In any form ever for anything. It stifles the advance of human progress, be it technologically, in the arts, or even politically. Advocating DRM ever for anything is like advocating AIDS ever for anything. Sure occasionally some real fucktard like Dick Cheney might get AIDS and that would be great. However, AIDS itself still sucks, and I'd advocate taking him out another way.

Specifically in this case prison time for purjury and election rigging until his pace maker gives out. Over all AIDS is still bad. Just like DRM.

Re:What good is it...

[vertinox]

if the only people who see this are already in agreement with the EFF on this one?

Post the link on your blog. Email it to your family members. Print the link on business cards and hadn it out to strangers on the street.

Re:To One Side

[vertinox]

DRM to constrain piracy = Good

Well DRM does not constrain piracy. It only hurts the

Zip. Nadda. Not one bit.

If a pirate wants to copy something or get a copy of something, he already has the tools to bypass whatever DRM you throw at him. Those who end up being hurt all the time is Joe Six packs who buy a copy and then the company that sold him the media goes bankrupt or his drm copy goes bad and he couldn't make fair use backups of it.

The "truth" about DRM is to make people buy media twice when they already own a licence for it.

And guess what happens to DRM when the copyright expires in 100 years from now? You still have DRM and may heaven help you if you are a historian trying to research early 21st century history and can't seem to find tools to read archaic DRM schemes (although I'll give our descendants the benefit of the doubt with computer skills by 2100.)

Not to mention this media is supposed to go into public domain once the DRM expires... But DRM is cheating the spirit of copyright law by making this impossible.

Re:Don't forget...

[spiritraveller]

That's kind of the whole point of this debate. Idiots like the EFF paint DRM as some kind of evil monster, when the truth is that it's just an effort on the part of the people who own things and want to be able to sell them without having them stolen to find a technological solution to what's clearly a societal problem.

The problem with DRM as a technical solution is that it uses my computer against me. My computer works for me. It doesn't work for anyone else without my permission... and that's why I don't use DRM.

DRM isn't "evil" until people no longer have the choice of refusing it.

That is why the EFF's campaign is important. It educates people about it, so that the market will make the right decision before DRM becomes an inescapable de facto standard.

I don't like it

[Godji]

As much as I love the EFF and everything they do (I donate every month), I don't like the movie on its purely presentational qualities.

1. It presents too many things too fast. Everything happends too fast. I showed it to someone unfamiliar with the issue, and who had only vaguely heard some of the terms used (analog hole, fair use, and the like). Her reaction was in the lines of "Huh? What the...? Can you play that again?"

2. It uses a foolishly cartoonish "superhero" style. When I see those overly comic-style "superhero" images with sharp lines, simple colors, and dumb logos on their chests, I find them stupid. They look stupid. This gives the whole video a comic feel, taking away any seriousness it might have wanted to imply. It fails to shock the unsuspecting viewer with what should be a shocking revelation. Don't get me wrong; the problem is not any crude drawing, but the adherence to the "comic superhero" style. Even the voice-over sticks to it...

3. It doesn't explain anything. What's going on? This is the most difficult one to get right, but a video has to at least try to explain part of the issue. You could say it only tries to turn your attention to the issue, but it doesn't... the video, as it is, requires one to do some serious background reading. How many people, who have never bothered with the issue before, are going to just stop what they were doing and start reading about DRM?

Number 2 is the biggest flaw in my opinion. Most people would oppose DRM if they knew about it, but if I send the link to anyone who's even a little sceptic about the importance of opposing DRM and the magnitude of its danger, that person would laugh at me. One already did, saying "What the hell is this bullshit?". The question was about the cartoonish guys, not the issue presented. I love the idea though, and hope they will come up with something better next time.

Re:To One Side

[Eideewt]

It's more like buying a product that stops working when you use it in an unapproved manner. Like a screwdriver that you can't pry open a can of paint with, a hammer that pounds nails but not chisels, a mattress you can't take the tags off of, or scissors that cut cloth but not paper. Not because of technical limitations, but because the manufacturers think it might possibly hurt their business.