FSF, Political Activism or Crossing the Line?

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."

the long view

[epine]

I'm not sure I agree with recent FSF positions (haven't tracked them much recently), but I agree overall with the FSF taking the long view of free software. There are enormous latent risks that DRM or shifts in the IP landscape (patents) could poison the well ten or twenty years down the road, by which point the crucial battles have already been lost. It's easy to come off as radical crusaders fighting battles that won't play out over a span of decades. Our short little span of attention is our worst enemy in these matters. The fact that they are alone in their extreme urgency doesn't prove much directly: they might be equally alone in a correct analysis of the risks at hand. Just because Chicken Little is squawking, that doesn't mean the sky isn't falling. Glib comments about Chicken Little behaving like Chicken Little have add nothing of any use to the larger debate. My comments add nothing of any use, either, but at least I know the difference.

Dogmatic DRM opposition

[Council]

In the last month or two, I've undergone a shift. I used to be fairly moderate in all this. I thought Lessig's book made some really good points, and I thought "there's a nice middle ground, it's only fair that the artists protect their rights, and that people should understand their own rights and at the same time not be piracy apologists. I don't pirate stuff very much, and I don't really mind when people do.

But especially with the new HDMI shit, with looking at what the DMCA actually lets people do, and thinking a little more about the big picture, I would like to take this chance to say: screw 'em. I hope the internet takes down the music industry, and then moves on to the movie industry. Let's take some risks, let's give people a little basic freedom, and let's let technology run its course a little and then figure out how to make money off the result. People have a hard time dealing with change, but it happens.

MPAA, I'm gonna go spend a little more time on the beach with my friends and a little less time trying to convince you and your surrogates that I legally own this DVD. Screw you and your careful licensing of permissions. And FSF, you've gained a contributor.

None of this is particularly new or revolutionary, but I want to add my voice to the chorus. Let's shake things up a bit.

DRM does not benefit my life

[hackstraw]

as a consumer, writer, musician, actor, or software developer.

Remind me how it benefits someone else?

My ideal future

[Runesabre]

I look forward to a day when the MPAA and the RIAA store everything on their own servers and I simply need to pay a license fee to have access to my music and movies anytime and anywhere (car, home, office, beach, Mars) without having to deal with any physical media at all.

Personally, I get tired of dealing with records, tapes, CDs, DVDs and the cycle of upgrading, the frustration of finding my favorite album scratched and unplayable or my kids tear it up or the dog pees on it or the latest format comes out and everything I have now sounds or looks like crap. Heck, make it a re-occuring license fee so they aren't incentivized to purposely build in self-deprecation to spur new sales of media formats and player hardware.

I personally don't care about the physical media, I don't get my jollies buying, owning and setting up hardware, I don't need to have a room devoted to wall-to-wall CD shelves to impress my friends a couple times a year at my massive collection.

I just want to hear my music and occasionally watch a movie when and where I want.

Re:Open Source zealots

[ooze]

Wrong. Zealots are convinced of their cause. They are more often than not flat out wrong, but they are credible, since their believe in thier points.

Marketing/public relations/lobbying, btw. is a slighty different thing. There people are paid to appear convinced of their points. Wether they are or not is secondary. This of course doesn't rule out that they still might be right about their points. But more often than not they lack any credibility. And even more often than actual zealots they are flat out wrong. Only knowingly so in most accounts.

So RMS might be a zealot. But a non-violent zealot, and a zealot who doesn't care about money that much but very much about free exchange of information.

Anyone who is pro-drm is inherently agains free exchange of information. Anyone who is against free exchange of information has something to hide. And if someone with the goals of money and power is against free exchange of information, then he is a fascist and a danger to peaceful and free society.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Utter nonsense.

[mwvdlee]

How many non-DRM alternatives are there anyway? To the best of my knowledge there is only one, and it's based in russia because that's apparently the only country whose laws don't enable the record company cartel found in the west. And even that DRM-free alternative is under constant fire from the cartel.

The whole evidence is pretty much moot if there isn't a possibility to proof it wrong.

If the record companies asked of us to whip ourselves on the back to buy music and didn't offer any other way to buy music, clearly whipping yourself to buy music is perfectly fine.

Re:Perspective

[pedestrian crossing]

There are those who'd call this FUD.

And then there are those who would say that this is right on the money. YMMV. Many people here are focusing on content, which arguably is not the point (although "The Right to Read" does make some good points). But fighting DRM as it is used to further restrict software is exactly in line with the FSF's charter.

I know, the market this, the market that, blah blah.

I agree, an informed consumer base is important.

Recent events show that the consumer responds quite well to fear, so maybe so-called "fear-mongering" is an effective way to go. I guess the "market" will sort that particular question out.

Re:How to miss the point (deliberately, I presume)

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, users have hardly had the time to find out what they bought into. Wait until a good number of iPods fail, are replaced by new players which will also fail someday, and so on. And everytime the users will expect to be able to use their songs with the new player, even if it's not an iPod but a cellphone with builtin music player by some other company. Users have already tried to sell their unwanted music and stumbled over the DRM. The ugliness of DRM needs some time to become apparent if you go just by experience. That's a strength of DRM.

Skip it...

[Mind Booster Noori]

This article is so full of nonsense, that you might skip it all, until the part where you can read:

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 is really true and most people fail to see it. The rest of the article is pure delusive nonsense.

Re:'Fair' DRM

[Half a dent]

To me the problem with DRM isn't so much what it stops you from doing but the fact that it is there at all.

Let me explain - piracy happens, it always will just accept it as fact. It is just a matter of move and counter move (another form of protection, another crack).

People also like to buy things (when they are not overpriced), I have over 300 legally purchased DVD movies and too much music CDs for me to count.

I am not that likely to copy disks, I don't even take a backup but I object to someone trying to stop me (even if I don't want to anyway).

Region coding (easy to get around but still a PITA), good ol' macrovision and new DRM coding are just causing problems for legitimate users rather than stopping determined pirates.

Re:Perspective

[Danse]

I disagree that DRM is the Great Satan of software development (which I was under the impression was central to the issue at hand).

So what exactly is your position regarding the situation described by the gp poster? Is it ok to use DRM to render free software useless? The real problem is that software DRM will never really work as long as the hardware is open, and once the hardware is no longer open, then you no longer own your own PC. That is the inevitable outcome of DRM. Someone else decides what you can run on your PC.