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Will People Really Boycott Apple Over DRM?
Ian Lamont writes "DefectiveByDesign.org is waging a battle against DRM with a 35-day campaign targeting various hardware and software products from Microsoft, Nintendo, and others. On day 11 it blasted iTunes for continuing to use DRM-encumbered music, games, TV shows, movies, audiobooks, and apps with DRM, while competitors are selling music without restrictions. DefectiveByDesign calls on readers to include 'iTunes gift cards and purchases in your boycott of all Apple products' to 'help drive change.' However, there's a big problem with this call to arms: most people simply don't care about iTunes DRM. Quoting: 'The average user is more than willing to pay more money for hobbled music because of user interface, ease of use, and marketing. ... Apple regularly features exclusive live sets from popular artists, while Amazon treats its digital media sales as one more commodity being sold.' What's your take on the DRM schemes used by Apple and other companies? Is a boycott called for, and can it be effective?"
apple users buy laptops with screens that work better as a mirror, with a pretentious little logo that shines through to your "graphic" work.. while a little colored pinwheel spins incessantly.
let them have DRM.
Also iTunes software seems to choke if you throw more than 10K songs at it...
People that buy Apple products don't care about logic or reason in any case.
People that boycott stuff would never buy from Apple for reasons of logic.
Mutually exclusive.
There DBD folks have the head up their asses. They win no freinds when they go after the short poll in the DRM tent.
It was not till apple came along and prices songs at $1 that it became attractive to put up with the conveniences of their system versus free but inconvenient pirated music.
They created the speed bump model of DRM for music. So actual barriers but speed bumps to limit the rate of spread of music sharing over music purchasing.
With video it appears they may be moving to a more locked down model. It's too early to tell. But why begin by attacking apple? go after the long poll in the tent.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The thing I find hilarious about Slashdot's rececent (very recent) disillusionment with both Apple (Jobs is god!) and Google (Dunt be teh evel!) is that, for YEARS, people have been getting modded down into oblivion for warning people that these guys were actually WORSE than Microsoft could EVER be.
And, just like real life, the people who were right were punished, and those who were epically wrong thrived.
The future will be competing monopolies. SteveJob will be serving the wealthy elite with products of ever increasing costs (and more and better recurring expenses). Google will hook in the drooling masses with free shinies, and dump all data gathered into their NSA data mine. And finally, the Stallmanistas will be trying to tell everyone what to do, and with the increasingly draconian GPL he will finally be able to dictate to people what software they are and are not allowed to use. It used to be "all about duh choize... as long as you dunt chuuze teh MiKKKro$$$loth)... but after they either break or enslave MS using the GPL, they are coming for everyone else, too.
Feel free to mod down... but we (the detractors of the mainstream lovefest) were right about Apple and Google. Can we afford for you to be wrong on the GPL, as well?