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FTC Warns Against Deceptive DRM

Posted by kdawson on from the we'll-come-calling dept.

Jane Q. Public writes "At the Federal Trade Commission's Seattle conference on DRM, FTC Director Mary Engle started off by referencing the Sony rootkit debacle, and said that companies are going to have to get serious about disclosing DRM that may affect the usability of products. She also said that disclosure via the fine print in a EULA is not good enough, and 'If your advertising giveth and your EULA taketh away, don't be surprised if the FTC comes calling.' Transcripts and webcasts are available from the FTC website." Update 18:13 GMT by SM: as Jane Q. Public was nice enough to diplomatically point out, the webcasts are no longer functioning, but transcripts are still available.

6 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Does this have anything to do with... by MrEricSir · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...when a certain US president accidentally bought some region 1 DVDs for a certain UK prime minister?

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  2. wtf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    WTF has the FTC to do with the linux Display Rendering Manager? Jim gettys and Keith Hewlett Packard have been working their asses out to make this thing wokring again and have the kernel provide decent acceleration and VT switching. Sure the FTC may be better than the old RTC approach but you don't break backwards compatible APIs every day for no serious reason despite what people do these days. It's up to the distributions if you ask me. And people know that. And that's it.

  3. Re:Isn't all DRM Deceptive? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Funny

    Digital Rights Mauling

    as in the DRM software mauls your digital rights.

    Ah, I thought that was when you make an unapproved use of the media and a bear comes and mauls you.

    That's about the only way DRM could be worse. On the plus side, that would totally get Colbert on our side of the fight.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  4. Re:Well, well. by Anonymusing · · Score: 2, Funny

    If I had done it, I'd probably still be sharing a cell with Bubba.

    "still"?

    How is Bubba doing these days, anyway?

    --
    Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
  5. Re:FTC Comes a Callin' by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sony: "I'm not surprised that you're calling"

    ITYM Sony: "We'll send someone over right away with a big bag of money and a van full of hookers and blow."

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  6. Re:about. darn. time. by AndrewNeo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Or they could just put physically broken discs in the cases, and be done with it when you open the case.