p2pnet - rss feed: The crime of DRM
p2pnet.net News:- The New York Times yesterday ran a story on an issue which last week received wide international front-page coverage —- the front pages mainly being web pages.
It centres on DRM, or digital rights management, illusory ‘copy protection’ by which the entertainment and software cartels hope to control consumer purchases and actions.
The idea is that when you buy a disc, you don’t actually buy it. You license it. And you’re only allowed to do certain things with it (usually for a limited number of times), depending on manufacturers’ dictates.
It’s farcical but the major music, movie and software companies, together with a few equipment firms with Apple Computer very much to the fore, are pushing the concept as though their existences depend on it. Which, they claim, they do.
October 3 was D-D Day, Defeating DRM Day, when a series of demonstrations suggested by Defective By Design let the cartels know exactly what they can do with with copyright protection technology.
Our colour pic shows a protest in Paris on October 3 when anti-DRM protesters picketed FNAC, France’s largest music, movies, and books retail store. But inset in black-and-wite is another clipped from the NYT piece and captioned, “Activists protested France’s digital rights measures last May. They want to play music and video, no matter where it was bought, on any device.”
The story leads off with, “It took more than 10 minutes to persuade the Paris police station’s highest-ranking officer that a crime might have taken place, but that did not deter Jérôme Martinez and his two companions.
“After all, the three had marched halfway across the Latin Quarter one evening in late September, accompanied by about 40 fellow advocates, waving banners and handing out parking-ticket-style leaflets that claimed they had committed a number of offenses. Among their crimes was listening to a song purchased from iTunes on a device not made by Apple Computer. The group, StopDRM, largely made up of young computer enthusiasts, was protesting the growing number of subtle restrictions used to limit the use of legally purchased songs and videos.
“Among their crimes was listening to a song purchased from iTunes on a device not made by Apple Computer. The group, StopDRM, largely made up of young computer enthusiasts, was protesting the growing number of subtle restrictions used to limit the use of legally purchased songs and videos.”
France this summer changed its copyright regulations, meaning to force compatibility of digital music across all devices, says the story, going on, “but in the end, the French law strengthened the hand of studios and record labels by prohibiting a person’s ability to circumvent protection measures; it never required songs to be transferred from one format to the others”.
Stay tuned.
Also See:
The New York Times - Their Crime: Playing iTunes on Devices Not Named iPod, October 9, 2006
series of demonstrations - Today is D-D-Day, October 3, 2006
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