Your Digital Freedom and The Dangers of DRM Infected Products
Recently I received an update from defectivebydesign.org as they were campaigning along with other groups such as the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to raise public awareness of an international day of action to attack big media and it's anit-social Digital Rights Management (DRM) infected products. Simply put, DRM it is a digital disease deliberately created to stop computer users from doing what they have always done - share and share alike for the benefit of all
DRM is against the very spirit which spawned the web and it casts a menacing shadow across the computing landscape. Menacing is the operative word here because as we all already know bullies love to menace and control individual victims with threats and intimidation but when those victims band together the bully usually beats a hasy retreat
Products infected by the DRM virus include Music, Movies, eBooks, Computers and Mobile Phones. As you can probably figure, this applies to everyone including you and me. DRM is used by companies like Apple, Microsoft and Sony to maximize profits and stop the public sharing images, movies, electronics books and more with their friends and family. It is extremely anti-social and sad that they want to control our basic freedoms in this way because people are social creatures by nature and like to help one another
Just to remind ourselves how important this issue is to EVERYONE lets recap on the ways in which big media attempts to screw us over by selling crippled, inferior products which are obscenely expensive and which offer us little control whatsoever over how we consume and share software and media we have legally bought and paid for
The Dangers
- DRM is designed to hurt the legal consumer more than the pirates
- Big Media wants to control our General Purpose PCs, Laptops and Cellphones
- Big Media bribing computer manufacturers to play along with the scam
- Technology companies bowing to the pressure above from Big Media
- Big Media executives sitting on the boards of technology companies
- Technology company executives sitting on the borads of Big Media companies
- Details of every media file on your computer being reported back to Big Media's HQ.
- Big Media stopping your puter from operating if you are using software they don't like
- Amazon remotely deleting legally purchased media from customer's Amazon Kindles
- CD's and DVD's which can only be played on one specific computer and on no others. No sharing
- No sharing of Educational materials
- Renew your cellphone and lose all that media you already paid for and downloaded. Very Nasty!
- Thou shalt not share because the computer police are watching. Feel the fear brother
How to fight DRM
- Become aware of DRM and tell your friends and family about the dangers
- Write about it on your Blog / Facebook / Website etc
- Insist on DRM free products before paying
- Do not buy Software, Computers eBook readers or Cellphones which are crippled by DRM
- Buy from this list of DRM free MP3 stores
- Sign this form
- Offer a donation to the Free Software Foundation:
Learn more about DRM and how it affects your digital freedom
Think Big Bro is not watching us? ('The Right to Read' - A cautionary Tale by Richard Stallman)
A Guide to DRM free Living (DefectiveByDesign.org)
Play.com offers UK users DRM-free MP3 music files from 65p (Guardian.co.uk)
Digital Rights Management (Wikipedia.org)
Why you should boycott Blu-ray and HD-DVD
Free Books and Classic Works of Literature
Did you know that you can get the Complete works of William Shakespeare for free? Indeed you can and a whole lot more besides at Project Gutenberg
DRM Free Music
Artists like Ryan Adams sets an example by selling 10 high quality DRM Free albums
Play.com - DRM Free Music and more
Adopt the OGG format instead of MP3 for your music collection. OGG is an open format for professional audio that will free you from the constraints imposed by corporations such as Adobe, Microsoft and Apple. OGG files can be played on any device without any restrictions whatsoever and there are many free media players that can handle OGG files. Windows Media Player does not read OGG files, surprise surprise, and is, dramatic drum roll .... DEFECTIVE BY DESIGN!
Remember - It's Your Freedom and It's Your Call
