Ecks - Slashdot User

Submission + - Brazilian site contains great anti-DRM guides

Submitted by

drmbreaker

on Sunday February 11, 2007 @07:47AM

drmbreaker writes: "In Brazil, far from the claws of the DMCA, a webpage has been written in English with straightforward instructions on how to break the DRM in iTunes, DVDs, and other sources, as well as on how to use BitTorrent, and how to download videos from YouTube and other video sites. The instructions are simple and step-by-step, down to each click of the mouse. Anyone can follow them, not just techies. Most people do not realize that DVDs can be ripped, copied, and mixed almost as easily as CDs. Everyone deserves to know how this can be done, especially given how many tools today make this very easy indeed. The site stresses that it does not support piracy, and that these techniques should be used only to back-up or transcode media that is already legitimately owned. Remember, making back-up copies and transcoding media content to enjoy it on different platforms is a legal right we all should protect and practice. Please spread this site's address around to as to weaken the grip of DRM even further."

Jonathan Lethem On Plagiarism 186

Posted by kdawson on Sunday February 11, 2007 @06:28AM from the copy-with-daring-and-whimsy dept.

tmalone writes "This month's Harper's Magazine includes an excellent essay by the novelist Jonathan Lethem titled 'The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism,' in which he discusses the public commons of ideas and the absurdity of restricting other peoples' right of second use. 'Artists and their surrogates who fall into the trap of seeking recompense for every possible second use end up attacking their own best audience members for the crime of exalting and enshrining their work.' Taking issue with the idea that any work is 'untainted' by others' ideas, he declares, 'Any text is woven entirely with citations, references, echoes, cultural languages, which cut across it through and through in a vast stereophony.' Later on he argues that 'Contemporary copyright, trademark, and patent law is presently corrupted. The case for perpetual copyright is a denial of the essential gift-aspect of the creative act.' Lethem finishes up with simple request: 'Don't pirate my editions; do plunder my visions.' The best part of the essay is at the end when he provides a key to all of the sources he stole his ideas from."

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