Our Next DRM Demo – 7pm Nov 30th 2005 @ Tower Records
Tuesday, 11.22.2005 – Category: Events & Recaps, Media, News
Its official. Our next DRM demonstration is on Wednesday, November 30th 2005 at Tower Records at 7pm on East 4th Street and Broadway in New York City. Check out the wiki that we’ve set up here for our protests for the flyer and more information. Here’s a preview of our new flyer that mentions the Sony Rootkit:
We’ll be informing consumers that even though Sony is recalling their XCP-infected CDs, DRM is something that they should be worried about. Just in time for the holiday shopping season. Hope to see you there!
UPDATE:Nov 25th 2005: I have updated a bit of the language on the new flyer. I’ve included a mention of the EFF’s Action Center and how people can get involved with reforming the DMCA. Check out the updated flyer, but to summarzie : We, along with the EFF suggest contacting your representives to have them support HR 1201, a bill that reforms the DMCA in order to protect otherwise legal circumventions of content-protection. If HR 1201 is successful, you won’t be commiting a crime by holding down the shift key to disable auto-run on DRM’d CDs.
Anyway, see you on Wednesday!
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:21 am
blame them!
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:18 am
You people are lame!
Find a real cause.
RE: : “If we get rained (or snowed) out, we’ll reschedule for December 5th, but hopefully that won’t happen. See you there!”
Shows real determination there fellas!
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:10 am
Some people just like being exploited.
brem
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:30 am
For those who think that we should “find a real cause” or “not waste our time”, there’s already been a very long and involved discussion about this criticism of our first protest on Ethan Zuckerman’s blog.
Glad to know that you think we’re determined.
Fred
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:03 pm
I sense no informing will be done, and just annoying. This project is a waste, for weeks I’ve read on blogs and boingboing about rootkit as if Sony’s protection was new technology. The cds have been protected in ways like this for a while, with dvds being the first to see the stronger protection. This type of protest is ass-backwards in the attempts of what the main goal should be. Think about it.
There is no way you are going to get Sony to not copyright its product. If you were the band or the director, wouldnt you want it copyrighted ? Just because you bought the cd or dvd, doesnt mean it is legal for you to strip it from the disc and alter the media in any way you seem fit. With the spread of technology in mp3/dvd media as well as hardware, brings the development of more open and public tools for people who, at one point, could not install Microsoft Office, but now are able to rip tracks to mp3s or organize their favorite downloads to their liking. All of this is extremely easier than it was 5 to 10 years ago. All of this is more public to a larger span of population. However, does any of this make it legal ? No. Companies pay for the use of songs in commercials and in trailers, but you shouldnt have to pay because you bought the cd ? Stupid reasoning. You want to add one song to your photo album for the family affair ? Spend the 1 dollar it costs to download it from iTunes. If you really wanted to put the effort in a project, 1 dollar wont sink your financial ship. You might own the track already on cd, if you rip the one track to mp3 to use it for a non profit project for your personal use not for public distribution, fine thats great, but its still illegal. Think about the song you ripped, and what it means to you, does that mean the artist wanted to use it in the same meaning ? No. You are basically using a music artist’s words to describe what you think they are trying to say, and back up what you are going to do. In a generation of people that hate having words being put into their mouth or thought controlling, this reasoning is simple. Pretty easy to see these points, and to see why an artist or movie director would get pissed for the infringement. Even if they make billions of dollars, who cares? , at one point in their life they earned it. Many directors spent their lives poor before they got their first break at a movie and like any of us who would do if we won the lottery, they lived it up. I dont agree with how each one of them spent their money, or how it could go to better things, but so could your money. Do you think the extra change I have in my pocket could goto a homeless person looking to get some booze or food ? Probably. Do I always give it to him ? Hell no, thats my change. First lose in a protest like this is to make yourself out better than the opponent. There are plenty of wiser things you should focus on to make an effective attack.
For example, the root kit reports personal information to Sony, on usage stats and sites of interest. So do Gator, Anti-virus programs, Winamp, Windows Media Player, Instant Msgers, FPS Videogames, MMORPG Videogames, etc. This isnt a new thing at all. If you use computers, this is known. To blame Sony from this angle, is good to an extent. They are legally not allowed to report your private information, without your consent at purchase or before first play. If the cd is put in a car stereo, and flashing lights do not go off with a whailing siren screaming “SPYWARE SPYWARE” , and no label is properly viewable on the cd, than legally you have a case. Now if people don’t like the protection, they can stop buying the cds with the protection. This is a temporary solution for most people who actually enjoy music and are willing to support their artist by purchasing their favorite cd. Some people might be ok with not playing the cds on their PC anymore, and just listening to them in their home stereo or car stereo. There is no need to use the PC media player to play your favorite cd, unless you have to. Some people might have to, so this “solution” becomes a problem for them. These are valid problems with the DRM setup that invade a person’s public domain. Some of the “problems” I see listed on the above flyer, like “Prevents You from putting your favorite songs to your mp3 player” and “Prevents you from making a real back-up copy of your cd” are total bullshit. This has never been legal, ever. Don’t get me wrong, I have always wanted this to be legal, and I totally agree that the rise of mp3 players sometimes makes it frustrating when you cannot get your favorite track to the player, but this has never been legal to do. Apple would say “download the song from iTunes, or use back it up from a cd you purchased”. Great answer, so they don’t get taken to court for trying to help people spread copyrighted material with their cool looking technology that we buy to make them more money. You think Steve Jobs gives a shit about how you get your music to your mp3 player when he is posing for the top 50 richest people in America photo shoot ? Probably not. Though, to not attack him completely, he has done as much as he can to make sure that mp3s are accessible for consumers of his product, which he should. As for the “real-backup of your cd” complaint, this has never been legal to do. I have never seen a dvd or cd that has told me to make copies of it in case I sit on it, drop it in acid, throw it into a wall to see it smash , or watch it burn in my fireplace..that hasnt been an independant release. If you want to make a real backup of your cd, then buy two, or wait a few months, and buy it used from a store. I am sure you can hold off of having that copy for one month and spend the 6 bucks needed for the backup.
I hope somehow in my sarcasm, and simple thinking , that my point here has gotten across to the people running this protest. Call me a narc, its easy to do, but I admit, I admire that you are actively doing something. I admire that you feel the need to inform people of what is happening right under their noses. However, I do not admire how you are doing it. The main goal should not be to whail and cry “IM SUCH A VICTIM”. The main goal of the protest should be to inform people that this is happening and that a demand of updated copyright laws and updated options should be created. The rise of technology is fast, especially in personal media. Companies should have to spend the money to give us the options needed and in turn still protect their invest. To do otherwise is unconstitutional to citizens worldwide. Many solutions could be thought about to prevent these problems. An example would be: Apple who has an existing contract with most music industry firms, could push that cds with protection on them could come with a unique serial key imprinted to the cd. This serial key could be put in as a guest account on iTunes, so a user could download the mp3s freely. If this option was available for consumers, I wouldnt even see a problem with paying an extra dollar for my cds if it makes one of the two companies in the equation happy. I still get everything I want, and they get what they want. The artist stays happy and known throughout public. This is just one example, that many hip-hop giants have already tried, Eminem, Jay-Z, 50 cent. All of these artists offered downloadable versions of their cd, via recording company’s website or a radio station’s website. 50 cent’s label made a deal with hot 97.1 for the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” cd to be available via their website in mp3 form in nyc. Money was made through advertisements and distributed to the radio station, but mainly the label.
These are solutions that are becoming available, and should be used as platforms for protest. Not one-sided terms for personal progress. We don’t have to be like Sony, there can be compromise. If no compromises are made, and Sony is toppled (unlikely but can happen) then the same replacement will be challenged down the line. Sure with an idea of serial keys for iTunes downloads, there is a possibility that a person could make a key generator to bypass, but the option is set in motion to make baby steps to a compromise. Key generators come out, then Apple gets off their asses and tries to think of a way to stop them, or use more unique keys. These are simple solutions if thought about, and can be had if protested for. We should not be protesting for who is wearing the bigger diaper. A stalemate serves no solution but annoyance to a society. If you want to make a difference, which again, I admire your efforts already, you should think of plausible solutions for the problem before protesting. You would get a hell of alot more people to back the protest, instead of showing up for free cookies and punch to a good place to meet liberal chicks.
November 22nd, 2005 at 1:28 pm
*Note for my above post. the DMCA copyright act allows for a citizen to make a legal backup of their cd for personal use, unless the publisher puts copy protection on the cd before purchase. You can not break copyright protection to make a copy of the cd. Since 1999 companies have put harder protection on their cds in order to abuse this open loophole in the DMCA , that gets around a citizen’s personal rights. enjoy.
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:20 pm
I can’t guarantee that we won’t annoy anyone, but our purpose will be to inform consumers about the consequences of DRM on their CDs. At our last protest we were happy to find that many consumers were quite interested in our cause and learning about so-called “content-protection.” In fact we weren’t aware, and still aren’t that anyone, including Virgin employees were annoyed by our presence.
We are not arguing for Sony to abandon copyrighting their products, or for anyone to abandon copyright. Yet. What we are going for, however, is for the world to know about what record companies are doing to the music that you’re buying.
This is incorrect. The Fair-use doctrine in US copyright provides exceptions for people using copyrighted works in specific situations. Your second comment mentions the part of the DMCA that forbids circumventing DRM for the sake of fair use. We object to this, and this is part of the core of our protest — just because a record company can slap a poorly written and dangerous technology onto an audio CD shouldn’t effect the public’s fair use rights of that music.
This is not known to the majority of PC users out there. The fact that Sony’s CDs are this invasive is especially not well known. Our goal is to close this gap of ignorance and help consumers learn that their personal information and data is at risk when they use DRM software on their PCs. The perception that the information is simply “out there” for consumers and that is their obligation to acquire it is to take a passive and apathetic position on the matter. Not everyone has high speed internet connections, reads blogs, or has the time to appreciate the subtleties of End User License Agreements. I’m not saying that what we know is best for consumers — we simply want them to know what we know and make the decisions for themselves.
I totally agree. But they have to know about the protection in the first place. Most consumers simply think they’re buying a fully functional audio CD or at least ones with ‘extra’ features. They certainly don’t think that they’re buying a CD that is going to function less than what they’re used to.
These claims pertain to actions that have been and continue to be legal. See above for my note about fair-use, or read up on the Sony Betamax case which establishes the legality of infringing-prone technology and actions.
See above.
I agree and it is.
We are not at a stalemate. The DRM issue is just beginning to reach a larger public audience and progress is being made. Claiming that a legitimate demonstration for the sake of progress is an annoyance to society is an affront to the idea of protests in general. Plus, I’m sure plenty of people found Ralph Nader very annoying when he was advocating seat belts in cars.
The plausible solution is to remove DRM technology and offer what has been offered for years – raw audio data. If the record companies want to beat “casual piracy” they have to start making their product more attractive to consumers — something that DRM definitely does not do.
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:06 pm
Outside of reporting usage stats to Sony of your computer, DRM is still a valid protection of content that cannot be compromised according to the DMCA. The only reason courts ruled against Sony was due to the spyware and software installation issue that comes with the cd.
We both seemed to agree on that , lets continue.
“I can’t guarantee that we won’t annoy anyone, but our purpose will be to inform consumers about the consequences of DRM on their CDs. At our last protest we were happy to find that many consumers were quite interested in our cause and learning about so-called content-protection. In fact we weren’t aware, and still aren’t that anyone, including Virgin employees were annoyed by our presence.”
if this statement were true, then you would not mislead people with your propaganda. this doesnt have to be a PETA protest where the guy runs out and screams “MURDERERRR” and throws paint on the person in fur. Not to say that are all like that, but think about what you put in your pamplet to “inform” and what you just stated.
under the section “What DRM has been known to do ?”
Install invasive and dangerous software onto your PC.
- noted, it is extremely invasive, but dangerous ? come on.
you dont have to be FoxNews and build fear with a technology that
does what normal programs do daily. It doesnt make you any more ample
to trojan viruses than Windows Media Player would. Also, who the hell
is monitoring your computer ? the CIA ? if the CIA is on your computer, you are already arrested, trust me. I dont even like the
option of having that right open as much as you do, but I dont need
to spur a frenzy of feared individuals to know it invades my privacy
and could possibly LEAD to dangerous methods.
Make your Pc and your data vulnverable to numerous malicious exploits and trojans
- not sure why this even follows the first one in the pamplet, it is pretty redundant , and if anything should have been a sub point.
Destabilize your operating system.
- come on. are you serious? you have just repeated yourself 3 times, in a pamplet that is supposed to inform people of what
DRM is. do you even know what DRM is ?
definition of destabilize: To upset the stability or smooth functioning of;
ok. you just repeated the first two points. great information.
next on the list, is this comment:
“This is incorrect. The Fair-use doctrine in US copyright provides exceptions for people using copyrighted works in specific situations. Your second comment mentions the part of the DMCA that forbids circumventing DRM for the sake of fair use. We object to this, and this is part of the core of our protest. Just because a record company can slap a poorly written and dangerous technology onto an audio CD shouldn’t effect the public’s fair use rights of that music.”
As I stated, to back up my argument, the DMCA allows people to make 1 legal personal backup. If you have to break copyright
protection in order to make that backup, it is illegal. If you were upset about the fact of “Fair-Use” then why is that topic not even highlighted at all in your pamplet ? I see a cute newsletter of Sony being “found-out” , I see who you are, I see but dont understand your section on What DRM is, I see what it could stop you from doing if you do not have the right sense, and I see how to tell if your cd is one of the “chosen”. Nowhere do I read how you think it is un fair for Sony to put copyright protection on cds that you buy and why? Sure , I see lots of “dangerous cds” , but why ? What is this informing me. Say a thousand of these flyers go out, you are going to talk to each of those people to make sure they understand that your real cause is the unfair treatment, and as I said earlier “the need of updating the laws with the technology” ? I doubt it. All you are doing is planting more stupidity inside stupidity. You aren’t educating anyone, you are forcing them to see something as dangerous without know what it really is or why its being done. I dont see anyone protesting OfficeXP at 200 dollar retail price from the developer who is also the publisher of the software allowing for only 3 licenses per purchase. That is 3 installs for 200 bucks, great deal Microsoft. However, I might see 13.99 for one copy of a cd reasonable factoring in the payout the muscian has to do to Publisher and stores, the overhead is quite small for them. (not all, like U2, but most)
next on the list, is this comment:
“We are not at a stalemate. The DRM issue is just beginning to reach a larger public audience and progress is being made. Claiming that a legitimate demonstration for the sake of progress is an annoyance to society is an affront to the idea of protests in general. Plus, I’m sure plenty of people found Ralph Nader very annoying when he was advocating seat belts in cars. ”
first off, how dare you compare cd2mp3 ripping in the same breath as the fact people should be wearing seat belts when they drive. the only thing people found annoying about ralph nader was the people that backed him. He ran for president so many times and his constiguets pulled a Judas each time and voted for a two party system or did not vote. Also, if you read above, you will see that in no way, the demostration you are doing is nothing but a stalemate. Your flyer is not informative, it is tripe propaganda to rile masses to show up, again for free juice and cookies. This isnt Les Miserables, this is reality, you shouldnt have to treat people like trained animals to get them to follow you. If you want to form a legitimate demonstration, try giving full facts about the topic in your propaganda.
and for the finale:
“The plausible solution is to remove DRM technology and offer what has been offered for years – raw audio data. If the record companies want to beat “casual piracy” they have to start making their product more attractive to consumers, something that DRM definitely does not do. ”
offered for years? we both just agreed in all 3 posts, that the DMCA states that fair-use is allowed if the publisher does not take it in their own right to copyright the material. so right there, since 1999, as I stated, “casual piracy” has existed. now “casual piracy” has spread with new technology. there was a time, yes, when it was all 2x cdrs and cdr-w’s didnt even exist, where the kid in 4th period french opened a cd wallet of 20 copied music cds and each title written sloppy with a sharpy. Nowadays people are making huge printing factories, and cd/dvd duplicators to sell on the street. Technology and many bad apples in society have spurred a new type of piracy that is far from casual and hinders the rights of everyone else. Look up the stats of money lost by the music industry quarterly, there are plenty of arguments that “if they want us to buy the cds, they should make it something worth buying” , which is true, many artists are garbage, but not all. I buy all the cds of my favorite band, and I would hope you do too, on release date. I bought the last Kanye West cd cause I liked the artist and the cd, yet 3 weeks before the purchase I could have bought it on the street for 5 dollars , that was a “real-back up” above 192 vbr quality and retail tracks in all. “casual piracy” is when you tape or record a movie off the tv to watch it later, or record something to tape or cd from the radio to listen to it or to record history being made. “casual piracy” should not be confused with making a personal back-up for yourself, because we both stated multiple times that doing so IS legal. the only thing not legal is break content protection on the cd for personal use. copyright protection should exist in this day and age, should it install spyware on your computer ? no. should it send meaningless usage stats back to the publisher ? never. my point, which i have stated over and over again, and you havent addressed directly other than to agree with it is simple. With new technology and expansion in media area, new laws should be made and old ones refined. There will always be copyright protection, it is fair, it protects a person’s lifelong investment, their job. If I wrote a book and some guy bought it and made copies for his friends so they could read it, spread the knowledge a little bit, and not charge them. I would be happy that my words , my life long achievement in writing could bring that much joy and impact. If the same guy is charging people he doesnt know cause his time is now WORTH money and he sees an opportunity to make it rather than saying “no, i dont have it” or “nah , i cant, its too much trouble and i cant waste the paper”. Instead he takes the ladder and charges, makes a dime off something that isnt him. Dont act like you have never seen this, most of the people reading have gone to college or walked the streets of a city. What your pamplet SHOULD be informing people is who they talk to , like a senate represenative, or what petition they can sign to have the DMCA ratified. Instead of forcing a meaningless demostration that will give 15 mins of fame to something that has deserved the full hour since 1999. I can only hope that you change the pamplet and your propaganda to do so before this rally happens. Thanks.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:09 pm
I suggest that you read the multitude of information and research available regarding Sony’s XCP DRM. A good place to start is Princeton researcher Ed Felten’s blog Freedom to Tinker. He has multiple posts that document that the Sony DRM is quite dangerous and does pose a serious threat to the security of an infected PC. This is the first post about the “rootkit” and here is a post detailing how insecure the uninstall procedure is. Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, though buggy, is no where near as dangerous or prone to trojan/viruses as the Sony XCP software is. The Department of Homeland Security has even chastised Sony because the software is so insecure. As far as I know, at least 500,000 networks were infected with the XCP software.
See the above articles on Felten’s blog regarding the security problems with the DRM software. The XCP could not “possibly” lead to problems, it does lead to problems. There are already 2 confirmed worms that exploit the cloaking technology. Would you consider a serious risk to a worm a problem? I do. The software is invasive because it reports data on your music listening habits. Un-installing it destablizes your OS by opening further holes and exploits. Needless to say, these are issues that endanger your PC and your data.
Fair-use is a fairly obtuse legal notion that requires a complex explanation of US copyright law. Explaining to consumers that a CD contains technology that won’t allow them to make MP3s goes a lot farther than a full explication of the idea of fair-use. That said, we do explicitly mention the idea numerous times on the pamphlet, but I am curious as to what you’d suggest in order to better highlight it.
I am not comparing cd2mp3 ripping to seat belts. That statement was meant simply to point out that protesting can and does annoy people — thats the nature of the beast. I, for one, would rather live in a world of many tiny annoyances than a few giant faults. Perhaps this is why I live in NYC, but that is another issue entirely.
These are two very different issues. Even the record companies admit that DRM is not meant to stop the kind of duplication happening at “huge printing factories.” They don’t even admit that DRM will stop internet piracy — there isn’t even any evidence to suggest that it does or ever will. Virtually every CD released with DRM is available on peer to peer networks in some capacity. DRM does nothing but stop innocent and naive consumers from doing things that they have a right to do, i.e. Shift formats, create backup CDs, and so on.
I think you mean “repeal” instead of ratify — but this is a good idea. I’m going to try to add a section about the DMCA to the flyer. Though the sad part of the matter is that consumers tend to be politically apathetic. I don’t want to sound cynical here, but the DMCA is simply another four letter bill to a lot of people, and learning the difference between 1201(A) and 1201(B) is not nearly as interesting or motivating as realizing that their CDs may no longer work for their iPod. Don’t get me wrong — I’m all for a more active American public, complete with citizens letting their Senators know that they hate the DMCA, but simply not buying DRM CDs is going to change the record companies behavior a lot quicker than petitioning citizens to contact their politicians in order to repeal the DMCA.
To address your larger point, that content-protection is a necessary fact of the future of technology: I disagree with this sentiment wholly. Trying to create digital, or for that matter, any other kind of media that is un-copyable is an untenable goal. Have you heard the quote “Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.
The sooner people accept this, and build business models that take this into account,
the sooner people will start making money again. “? Bruce Schneier said that and I think he’s dead on. As long as something can be digitized, or even perceived aurally or visually – then it will be copyable. Accepting that content-protection is inevitable is to abandon technology in its current manifestation. The internet, computers, CD audio, all depend on copying data. The only question is how long it will take for the world to realize and accept this fact and how much collateral damage (in the form of bad DRM, bad laws, lawsuits, and so on) will occur during this process. My goal, our goal, is to minimize that damage.
Thanks for reading.
Fred
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:40 pm
Several criticisms of Patrick’s posts:
1.As far as I can tell this pamphlet is to raise awareness about the risks current of DRM (not just on the recalled Sony cds) to consumers. I can hardly see how this is a point of contention. Even if Patrick agrees with the DMCA and the principles behind DRM (this much isn’t entirely clear, especially since he seems to have, at one point, confused the words ‘ratified’ and ‘repealed’) he still agrees that DRM, in its current iteration, threatens basic consumer rights of privacy. For some reason, Patrick digresses into a tautological argument for more powerful copyright laws, though this is hardly what the focus of the ‘protest’ is.
2. Still, to address the internal incoherence of Patrick’s argument for the DMCA, we need only look at the precedent set by other real world situations. The crowbar, for example, is no doubt used on a daily basis for illegal activities- breaking and entering, car theft, assault, etc. This has not prompted the government to outlaw crowbars, because there is substantial legal use of them as well, which warrants their legal availability. “Substantial legal use” is not my language but rather paraphrased from the fair use laws decided under the previously mentioned Betamax case. Printing presses, scanners, and book-binding glue is not illegal just because Patrick is afraid his book will be misappropriated and sold for profit, likewise technology should not exist that effectively blocks and/or makes illegal the substantial legal use of data on CDs, including music.
3. This is a bit besides the point, but should be cleared up, because it seems to be basis for one of Patrick’s points. Patrick claims the reason people were annoyed with Ralph Nader was because he ran for president so many times, not because he pushed for consumer awareness. It should be noted that Nader first ran for president seven years after he published his book “Unsafe At Any Speed” in 1965 and began campaigning for the reform of seat-belts.
A fair judge of the value of Patrick’s arguments can probably be made when you look at how many times he includes totally extraneous ad hominem attacks on Fred, claiming repeatedly Free Culture’s program of promoting consumer awareness is vainglorious and nothing more than an attempt to pick up liberal chicks. One wonders if perhaps Patrick, who himself acknowledges the importance of such Digital Rights issues (“[it] has deserved the full hour [of fame] since 1999”), is the one trying to unfairly garner his 15 minutes with these comments.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:00 pm
Curiously, on Patrick’s site (found from a link he posted on his tag on this site) there appears to be a modified version of this comic.
Patrick’s version has no citations and it does not seem that he has received a proper copyright license for using this picture. Ironically, this type of appropriation, whereby someone takes an artist’s original work, alters it and reproduces it, is very close to the type of copyright ‘infringement’ Patrick bemoans in his posts. Granted, Patrick isn’t selling this picture,but he is certainly copying it and redistributing it, lucky for him there was no DRM on it.
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:10 pm
First, I would like to thank Alex on his good detective work for that picture, most people do not get the joke. As for infringement, I would believe the publishing company’s copyright on that book is up at this point, usually they wont renew certain books. I could be wrong, but I definitely do not care, if I did, I would not have put in the optional URL . Again, thank you for the free publicity for my site as well, though it was never asked for.
Now , I have read both your posts, yet I am not sure if either of you read mine. Let’s clear something up first. Sony did not invent DRM. Sony invented XCP technology, which is what they use to perform DRM on their audio cds. They use other technology for dvds. DRM is a standard pratice of almost any software or media company. Sed example:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/drm/default.aspx
As you can see, many companies have a DRM for their media. You should make this an ANTI-XCP site, or something catchy to the calibur that it is actually correct as well as informative. Now onto the rest of your posts.
Not once did I say I was against copying software or media for personal use. I simply stated facts that are given via the DMCA law. I never said that I myself follow them. I used those facts to point out flaws in your arguments and your protest, so that when a rally does happen, it is not a waste of everyone’s time. Maybe you will think smarter before attacking someone as if they have never read the dangers of the rootkit, or of spyware. I said that the rootkit could possibly LEAD to danger, and I am attacked with a professor’s website , with your summary of his words. Your summary takes a paragraph of the professor’s words stating that the rootkit is dangerous. Out of context, the professor stated prior to the pasted summary that this is a possible outcome of the protection. My main complaint , since post one was to stop acting like FOX NEWS and trying to scare people into being afraid of this technology. Sorry if you havent figured out how to get around it, some of us have. However, this doesnt make it at all right , in any way.
Why doesnt make it right ? Cause this is America, not Soviet Russia. A person should be able to have the dream to become a rockstar and kill himself for your entertainment to make millions. Thats why this is America.
Now I will do two things with this post. The first thing will be correct your mishaps.
Alex, you first. None of what you stated I said, is what I said. Simple example for people who are poor at comprehension:
What I said: first off, how dare you compare cd2mp3 ripping in the same breath as the fact people should be wearing seat belts when they drive. the only thing people found annoying about ralph nader was the people that backed him. He ran for president so many times and his constiguets pulled a Judas each time and voted for a two party system or did not vote.
What you said I said: Patrick claims the reason people were annoyed with Ralph Nader was because he ran for president so many times, not because he pushed for consumer awareness.
Now. I can read, and I am sure some of the people that visit this blog can also read. My example of a Judas ( which would be a follower up until the time of reckoning) might have been lost to a younger mind. As you can see, I never said the problem with Ralph Nader not winning lay within him running multiple times for presidency. I said the people that supported him were his problem for not winning. I infact attended the last two Nader Conventions at Madison Square Garden. However, I went with Democratic Party this last election, because I felt the difference could have been made there. It was not, and I was as sad as others word. Though I changed to Democratic before the past elections started , after Nader’s previous defeat, I was upset with the supporters of the party as a whole.
Now if you want an “attack on fred” , I can say “Alex, defend your girlfriend Fred only when you can make a coherent thought, and actually have read what both people posted”.
But I was never attack Fred at all. I was attacking the way the problem is being approached. You want to go radical and keep this problem churning for 10 more years, great. I personally , as a liberal, want to compromise on the problem and do not need to have a civil war to prove whose dick is the biggest. As for my “mistake” with the term “repeal” and “ratify” , you cannot be serious. To completely remove DMCA is assinine. Without the DMCA protecting the copyright of certain media from giant bootleggers out to make money off other people’s work, is the stupidest thing I have heard since the creation of the RiAA. This website , itself, signed up for Creative Commons License, for what purpose other than to protect your thoughts and ideas as being YOUR thoughts and ideas. A great free source and legal way to copyright a page. If you set this up, why do you find it necessary for Music/Movie industry to not have protection on their work ? Do either of you even know how the music/movie industry works ? How the money is distributed to the label, the artist, the publisher ? Have either of you even seen a VH1 behind the scenes on Artists who were robbed for every penny by the label or publisher ? All of which was done because the Artist did not have copyright protection legally on his masters or have control of his masters (the original recording). Some went bankrupt giving away money to friends, but in turn could not make money back in the industry, even if their next album was just as good as the first. Others cheated artists, such as Boyz II Men for example, robbed of millions from their manager, because the copyright agreements were setup under the wrong name. Guns and Roses split up, but Axel kept all the namesakes because his name was on all the documents. These are the bad apples that abuse copyright laws, which can be put in comparison to Bootleggers who are the bad apples that are the reasons we have to endure such intense laws on copyright.
I will state this again, this is America, freedom of choice, a democracy. Not Soviet Russia. Here we dont remove an entire copyright act so we are apple to download and copy our favorite music/movies from any source. That right there is an attack on economy. Why would you want to put people out of work ? Jealously ? Let’s break this down for the intelligent people reading this and thinking “their attacks are just around the topic and never direct”. Simple example, one which you should all understand and with your logic should make sense because it uses it:
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Imagine…free economy.
I buy a cd in the store. The music is great, I want to tell other people about it. I make a copy of it for my friend. He then takes that copy and makes a copy for Steve, without asking me. I didnt say it was ok for Steve to get a copy, but he gets one anyhow. Steve is a bad guy, he makes 100s of copies of my copy. Steve goes on the street and sells each copy for 5 dollars. Today steve sold 500 copies. That is 2500 dollars in Steve’s pocket. The 100 pack of cds cost him 20 bucks, he used 5 100packs. Thats 100 dollars, meaning Steve made 2400 dollars in profit. All off the 13.99 I spent on a cd of a band I love. I love them so much, I think they deserve the money I spent. However my plan of good tiding to the band backfired and trickled into an entire underground market. How was I supposed to know ? I am just a simple consumer who wanted to spread the good word. I have destroyed economy in the society I live in to do what I felt was better. I wish copyright protection existed, so I at least this process of destroying an economy of business for my personal gain could have prevented others like me who shared my ideas….
——————————————-
Now you see, how your logic can be used on you by the other side. If this was a public debate on platforms, both of you would easily be destroyed in front of a crowd of your peers. Your scare tactics are the same that will be shared by your enemy, the above example, is one POSSIBLE outcome out of many that can occur from copying a cd for your friend. Not everyone has friends like “Steve” though. Some people actually will listen to a copy and buy the cd cause they also like the band. Instead of following the tactics of your enemy, who will use scare tactics like the example listed above, try using your brains. Sure , its easier to burn a bridge down than rebuild it.
But at what cost? You are going to attack a mute point, not even legitimately, since I explained to you that DRM is just a term not a technology used by multiple companies. Instead of attacking like the enemy, try to inform the people of the possible problems XCP protection can lead to while its protected under a companies DRM rules. A company legally is allowed to have DRM standards, maybe the standards should be ratified, along with the current acts protecting them ???? OMG ORGASM BINGO !!! Could after 3 posts I have made it simple enough for you to just humor the idea that you are coming at this at the wrong way ? I WILL TYPE THIS NEXT PART IN CAPS FOR ALEX, SO HE ACTUALLY READS THE POSTS OF BOTH PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE DISCUSSION BEFORE COMMENTING. IF EITHER OF YOU REALLY WANT TO PERFORM A PRODUCTIVE PROCESS IN THIS EVENT , ALL I SUGGEST IS THAT YOU INFORM PEOPLE PROPERLY. YOU COULD HAVE EVEN EMAILED ME PRIVATELY TO HELP WITH SOME OF THE INFORMATION AND ORGANIZATION , FRED AND I SEEMED TO HAVE AGREED ON EVERY SUBJECT SO FAR EXCEPT FOR THE PRESENTATION OF THE INFORMATION TO THE PUBLIC. AS FOR ALEX, I would think you are still reading at this point. To make a loose threat to someone who is for freedoms in America, choice, speech, etc, is just a sad attempt to defame character of someone you could not debate with on the subject. Was the reference you made about “lucky for him there was no DRM on it” at all needed? Are you a Narc Alex ? Do you feel stupid now that you know what DRM is ? That it is a term and not a technology that prevents you from copying cds ? Speaking as a person who at 14 signed petitions to have the DMCA ratified or even removed at the time of its creation, and then a person who signed multiple petitions to against the Patriot Act and the creation of the RiAA, I will say, to agree with me on all aspects but attack me only to defend the criticism of your poor presentation of something that I, for one, have cared about probably when you were still in the womb, is sad. I will be at the rally, hopefully you guys clean up your presentation and fix the shit on wikipedia before you are embarrassed by someone who is a “college professor”, it seems thats all you might be impressed with. I will make sure to ask for both of you , so if you hide from a good debate, its your lose. This will be my last post here, you can delete my posts if it helps clean the page up so you can just get facts out to the public. Just make sure they are facts please, that is all I ask, again I will state I admire your efforts, Fred , I admire your professionalism kept throughout this whole thing. Thanks. You have my email if you want to take this into a more private debate. enjoy.
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:13 pm
Regardless of DRM-related issues, that (ed: a modified version of this comic on Patrick’s site.) is still a blatant copyright violation, one that would hardly be worthy of any fair use defense due to its lack of transformative nature.
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:34 pm
Right, I am kind of at a loss at the moment after having read this last post five or six times. It is a little difficult to try to analyze an argument when it includes comments like “???? OMG ORGASM BINGO !!!” And has enough grammatical and syntactical mistakes to make the vast majority of it incomprehensible. All that I could glean from this last post was that Patrick has become increasingly desperate to justify an increasingly garbled criticism of Free Culture’s protest. I could make no sense of his comments about Ralph Nader, nor the relevance of his attendance at various political functions. I am not surprised that, at the end of his post, he asks the administrator to delete it.
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:07 pm
Only fools dare try to protect Sony now. Many people posting here do not have a clue as to what FreeCulture is all about.
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:34 pm
Who the fuck cares what FreeCulture is all about.
If you people even care about “free culture” than go protest WalMart and their intentional abuse and exploitation of migrant immigrant workers, or China’s absolute censorship of all media and free thinking, or Firestone’s Liberia rubber plantation that uses child slave labor even today.
You folks are just spoiled rich NYU kids with too much time on your hands. You guys care more about DRM on your Neil Diamond CD then any real social issue.
Folks at BoingBoing and FreeCulture need to get a life!
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:37 pm
SONY NEWS
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/80457/us-rights-body-and-state-of-texas-file-against-sony-bmg.html
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:42 pm
I’m going to repeat what I said above — check out Ethan Zuckerman’s blog post about our first protest where you can find a long and involved discussion regarding the apparent merits and short comings of protesting DRM as opposed to issues surroung Darfur. Please see my post there if you want to actually know how I feel about your comment.
Anyway, what is your cause?
Fred
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:37 pm
Almost 3,000,000 Christians were killed in Sudan BEFORE Dafur and the Christian world was silent.
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:46 pm
>>>>>I’m going to repeat what I said above — check out Ethan Zuckerman’s blog post about our first protest where you can find a long and involved discussion regarding the apparent merits and short comings of protesting DRM as opposed to issues surroung Darfur
I read your rant, and you seem to believe that protest for the sake protest is some sort of justification for a stupid cause. Yes, there is no hierachy in social causes, but just like he has a right to fight for any cause, I, and everybody else, has a right to proclaim it “stupid” and “idiotic”.
If you are willing and able to dish out criticism to others about about a cause, it’s fair game to receive it as well.
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:58 pm
Glad you read the “rant” — now I’m not quite sure what you’re doing other than saying boo to someone else’s cause.
I don’t believe that protesting justifies a cause. A whole slew of other things justify my cause. Try reading up about the issues we’re objecting to and you’ll see that there plenty more people than “spoiled rich NYU kids” and BoingBoing who care about it. Sony is facing millions of dollars of damages via multiple class action lawsuits because their DRM infected hundreds of thousands of computers. Something tells me that the courts, nor the multiple law firms involved, consider this case “stupid” or “idiotic.”
You still haven’t answered my question, what is your cause?
November 28th, 2005 at 8:43 pm
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