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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."
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.
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.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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.
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.