FSF, Political Activism or Crossing the Line? 567
orbitor writes to tell us InfoWorld's Neil McAllister is calling into question some of the recent decisions by the Free Software Foundation. From the article: "All the more reason to be disappointed by the FSF's recent, regrettable spiral into misplaced neo-political activism, far removed from its own stated first principles. In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights management) technologies, which first manifested itself in early drafts of Version 3 of the GPL (Gnu General Public License), seems now to have been elevated to the point of evangelical dogma."
Someone needs to read up (Score:5, Informative)
DRM is exactly the kind of things that caused Stallman to launch the FSF in the first place.
Reply (Score:5, Informative)
http://defectivebydesign.org/node/78 [defectivebydesign.org]
Re:Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
The informed consumers (or lack thereof) is another problem, but not one the GPL can address.
How to miss the point (deliberately, I presume) (Score:1, Informative)
"For starters, market realities right here in the United States put the lie to the FSF's histrionics. Apple's iTunes Store, which sells DRM-encoded music and videos to millions of iPod owners, is going like gangbusters. Clearly, despite DRM's widely discussed inadequacies and regular aggravations, more than a few consumers are willing to put up with it when the price is right. That's just basic free-market economics."
Umm, yes, true... if the price is right, people will put up with all kinds of shit. But that's not the point - the point is the same people will lose out in the longer term because of the drm they bought, and the dmca (and related) legislation that backs it up. The "hysterics" of the fsf are designed to make the average joe more aware of this.
Next quote:
"For DRM to fail in the entertainment industry, all that needs to happen is for customers to choose not to buy it, which in turn should convince artists not to use it."
This would be fine if the **aa weren't a monopoly for all practical purposes. But they are, so they can shove pretty much whatever they like down the neck an apathetic public.
Just my $0.02.
ProDRM - Ignorance = FSF Stance (Score:5, Informative)
This is one of the more ridiculous assertions I have seen in quite a while. It is akin to saying that the rise of the confederate army "puts the lie" to the Union Army's "histrionics" in regard to its anit-Slavery stance. It is a complete non sequitur to conclude that DRM is not bad just because a large part of the populace ignorantly embraces it. The difference here is that the harm falls on the ignorant as well.
People who think DRM is about protecting artist's rights and guaranteeing fair use while stopping piracy have literally no idea what DRM is, or what its potential for abuse implies. DRM is NOT about what music you can play or what videos you can watch, it is about what software you can run on your hardware!
The evolution of DRM is intended to be as follows:
Think about it people! Think! I implore you. You don't think Gates is pro DRM because he cares about making sure artists get paid boatloads of money, do you? Really?
Re:It IS a free market; you are 100% wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. The DMCA was bought and paid for to prohibit a free market and to try to defeat natural free market forces and to prohibit natural free market responses.
Teh DMCA makes it criminal for me to offer an independant and innovative player on the market. It even makes it criminal to USE an independant and innovative player. Makes it criminal to offer (or use) any format conversion product or service on the market. Makes it criminal to offer (or use) any products or services on the market to resolve any of the problems and incompatibilites caused by DRM. Makes it criminal for me to offer a blind person an independant text-to-speech e-book reader product, and even says the blind person goes to prison for using that independant text-to-speech reader for the e-book he bought.
No, the ENTIRE issue here is that this is an attack on the free market.
If there were a free market, then there would be no DRM issue. DRM inherently causes problems for at least some people, and that creates a market for products and services to circumvent or remove that DRM to resolve those problems. Any DRM scheme with any meaningful market impact would always immediately promt a natural market response of products and services to circumvent or remove that DRM.
In a free market, people will always preffer a non-DRM product over the same DRM crippled product. They will always select a less restrictive DRM ove a more restrictive DRM. And in a free market people demand and buy products and services to fix the problems and hassles caused by DRM. People would be annoyed at producers who sell DRM crippled products where they have to go buy a second product to fix or remove that DRM, and producers would not be bothering to piss off their customers by applying pointless circumventable removeable DRM.
YOUR argument is that the market is not free because YOU want to buy/download non-drm music.
My argument is that the market is not free because I go to prison for selling blind people e-book readers, and because those blind people go to prison for using that e-book reader. Not to mention the freedom of innovative independant DVD players and independant innovative MP3 players that can play iTunes music and MicrsoftMedia format and able to play any and all other stupid DRM scheme formats.
confining government intervention in economic matters to regulating against force and fraud among market participant
That's exactly what DRM opponents WANT.
Go ahead, you're free to use any and all the DRM you want. Just get rid of the horribly broken market destroying DMCA. Simply fix the law so that innocent noninfringing people do face prison. That blind people not go to prison for using an independant text-to-speech e-book reader.
Then free market forces will deal with all of this DRM nonsense and resolve DRM problems PDQ.
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Re:textbook case of FUD (Score:3, Informative)
You are perfectly free to write DRM GPL v3 software.
The original GPL says two signifigant things:
(1) When you take my GPL code and redistribute it back to me, you cannot attempt to deny me the legal rights to modify and use derivatives of my own software.
(2) When you take my GPL code and redistribute it back to me, you cannot attempt to deny me the ability to modify and and use derivatives of my own software by supplying incomplete source code.
Well, the GPL v3 addresses a new legal issues clarifies that the grant of all legal rights to modify includes any DMCA/EUCD permissions needed for modifing that software. So you are perfectly free to write DRM GPL code, but you cannot expect to have me put in prison under the DMCA/EUCD for modifying or removing that DRM in that derivative of my own code.
The GPL v3 also addresses a hypothetical argument/scheme to try to defeat the GPL. In particular it clarifies that supplying the complete source code means that you really do need to supply all of the source required for compiling working modifications. In particular it clarifies that you cannot attempt to defeat the GPL by supplying incomplete source laking some crypto key required for compiling working modifications. So you are perfectly free to write DRM GPL software, but you cannot expect to give incompltete source code lacking some critical key required for successfully compiling working modifcations.
You cannot take my GPL code and then expect to deny me the legal right or the complete source for me to modify and use it derivatives of my own copyrighted code.
The GPL v3 merely clarifies original purpose and operation of the GPL.
Trying to do DRM under the GPL has always been pointless. The GPL is all about ENSURING that people who get the code have the right and complete source to modify that code - including the right and source to be able to modify or remove that DRM scheme.
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