DRM

Tagging DRM

The Anti-DRM campaign Defective By Design has begun tagging products on Amazon.

The system works on Amazon.com with their system of “tagging” products on its US site. You can look at a product and add a tag that describes it. We have started tagging items that contain DRM (Blu-Ray players, Blu-Ray DVDs, the Zune, the iPod, Amazon Unbox movies etc.) with the “defectivebydesignâ?? tag.

As products get tagged over and over again with a particular tag, that tag surfaces to the top of the list, and displays in larger text in some views. There is also a page for pictures and discussions of the tag. Tag these products and search for similar DRM products to tag now!

All of the international Amazon websites allow customers to review products. Review a DRM product NOW as a way to warn others of the problems they may face because of DRM. Once you have reviewed a product you can post the link as a comment on our site, to encourage other DefectiveByDesign crew members to rate your review. If you see a product review that points out the DRM problems you can also rate that review highly so that others will see it.

Your participation will ensure that thousands of products get tagged and reviewed, and hundreds of thousands of consumers, maybe millions, will be warned about DRM. Nice!

(via Defective by Design)

Posted on by mklang

DRM & Vista

Yesterday at the Internet Days in Stockholm a nice man from Microsoft who was apparantly no more than three steps away from the head developor at Redmond (nice, if you like games like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon)  stopped by the FSFE table to discuss DRM. We were on opposite sides of this issue and we had a very interesting discussion which concluded (predictably) that we were still in disagreement.

Basically his argument was that DRM can be useful and that opponents to DRM were too emotional (and a bit paranoid). My arguments were that DRM limits users rights, regulates in a way that limits legal rights and requires trust in a corporate body (whose goals are, and must be, profit – not user’s rights).

After a move into arguments that nobody is forced to use DRM:ed software we then moved into the realm of philosophy with arguments whether the user can “choose” without facts, or whether the user is aware that choices need to be made, and finally, whether or not the user cares about his/her rights.

We both had an agreeable time.

We also exchanged products. I gave him a copy of my PhD and he gave me a copy of Windows Vista Customer Preview program (Release Candidate 1). This version has ten licenses, which means that it can be installed on ten computers (or ten times on the same computer).

So â?? does anyone want to try Vista?

Posted on by mklang