News
What is DRM?
- It stands for Digital Rights Management. Also referred to as digital restrictions management.
- It is broad term used to describe several techniques used to restrict the free use and sharing of digital media
- Most media is copyrighted, but they all have a fair use clause. DRM does not accommodate the use of that clause.
- Similar to copy protection.
Both violate the Copy Right Act, which gives you the right to use it
more than once, loan it to a friend, resell it, and make a backup copy.
Who Uses DRM?
- A big argument against the use of DRM is to prevent the control of
media by the producers of the media. This would prevent creative
expression.
- One example of the use of DRM is Content Scrambling System
created for DVDs. It was DVD Consortium, they only gave the key to
hardware manufactures who agreed to make hardware on their terms, such
as not having a digital out. Also, under the DMCA it is illegal to break the protection.
- Songs bought on iTunes are encoded using Apple's FairPlay
encoder. Apple does not license FairPlay encryption to other hardware
manufactures, forcing you to use an iPod. Bypassing their encryption is
a violation of the DMCA. iPod does not play Microsoft's WMA files, or
RealNetwork's Helix-protected files, forcing you to break the DMCA if
you want to listen to them on your iPod.
- Sony started releasing their CDs with Extended Copy Protection software. This software is a rootkit. List of affected CDs.
- Ruckus uses DRM to make you renew the license every 30 days and prevents you from sharing the files.
- Believes that DRM is incompatible with the GPL
- Wants to stop GPL software from being used to develop any DRM software
- Thinks that if you want to fight DRM, you should require your content to not be included in anything protected
- Says that the GPL already requires source code, so it does have an anti-DRM clause.
- States that as software developers, we don't have the right to enforce rules on hardware makers.
Works Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Rights_Management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Music_Store
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_CD_copy_protection_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Copy_Protection
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1915643,00.asp
http://trends.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/02/02/1636216
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/15/gpl_drm_license/
http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/opensource/0,3800004943,39156200,00.htm
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/01/17/73956_HNnewgpl_1.html
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php
http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft