Allons Enculer DRM

DRM, Copyrights, and The Solution

2006-10-22T15:41:00.000-07:00

I think the real issue behind DRM is that is doesn't adequately guard against piracy, it doesn't serve any real purpose beyond basically trapping people as a customer base via license and regulation.

To understand piracy, one needs to understand why it exists in the first place, firstly, piracy exists because there is a demand, even a need, whether rational or not, of the COMMUNITY, for the services of pirates. It's the same with any blackmarket institution. For instance, if there weren't people one long waiting lists for organs, there wouldn't be black market organ trades. Whether or not the black market organ selling is a myth or not, it illustrates a concept. There is a demand which cannot be filled through official channels. The fact that you can't get something will never stop you from wanting. The main difference between software/video/music piracy, is firstly that people can live without it, and secondly there need is, unlike human organs, emminently serviceable. That is, although people could survive without mp3s, they don't need to, they are forced to by an inflexible and greedy corporate structure that doesn't see the forest for the trees.

For instance, corportations, simply for legalistic purposes, claim that each person who downloads a pirated copy of some item, is a lost sale, but we as consumers know from our own experience that this is patently false. For instance, if you can't buy a copy of Photoshop, you will most likely buy a copy of Paint Shop Pro, if you can't buy a copy of Paint Shop, you will download a free copy of Gimp etc. There are alot of soultions, you can get software for free, but, the truth is, Gimp is not as good as Paint Shop, and Paint Shop is not as good as Photoshop, so when presented with a hefty pricetag, one that you could never afford, or the possibility of downloading a copy off the cuff, you will take the pirated copy, not because you are an evil criminal, just becuase you can't pay the bill but you need the functionality. In essence, what I am trying to explain to you is, people involuntarily become pirates because software/videos/ and music financially inaccessible.

We have wheelchair ramps, braille on drive through atms, and computers that read your screen to you, we are all about accessibility for people at a disadvantage to others, well what about people that are financially disadvantaged?

The problem is, someone who pirates a video most likely didn't have the cash to spare to actually buy it in the first place, so fine him 250 - 500,000 dollars and 5 years in jail is kinda stupid. Firstly, doy, they don't have the money, even if they were well off enough to buy 1 video, they sure as hell can't buy 10k in one sitting (500k / 49).

So essentially, they can't pay up, so we cram them in jail? What the fuck are you kidding me? Are you fucking mad? You are gonna stick of 19yo college kid in prison, a place for criminals who are "dangerous" to society (You know, hence the whole locking them in cage thing.) just for downloading the latest kate beckingsale flick? Jesu mary mother of god. Ya see, the problem here is that prisons have become all about punishing people instead of keeping society safe from violent offenders. We just cram whoever we don't like into a cage, it's revenge, not justice. Prisons are, or at least should be, about keeping society safe from VIOLENT offenders. To keep them from hurting others, and in some cases them selves. It isn't or shouldn't be about revenge, and it sure as fuck isn't the place from some p2p nerd, jesus man, all he did was download a fucking mp3 and now you think he should spend the next 5 years of his life being so greasy fat bastards buttery kornhole? Have you no fucking soul? What kind of inhuman monster decides to torture someone for 5 years, and indebt them for the rest of their natural life, all over a fucking video that costs 5 cents to press onto a fucking disk? Hello, can we say over-fucking-reaction much? Much too much.

The truth is, we as a society are just gonna sit here and take it lying down, come Ike, hit us again and put some stank on it padre! So you know what, I don't blame the corporations for this, they are mindless legal entities, immoral and unconscienable because they fucking don't exist, they are pieces of paper interested in protecting investors. You wanna know who I blame, I blame you. That's right, you, the reader, because while you are laying there getting ass raped by corporations and doing fuck all about it, those same corporations are destroying completely the lives of people for downloading the latest Sheryl Crow jam. You are what's wrong with society, so the next time you are flipping through your five hundred channels of crap and happen upon the court channel featuring the latest round of sueing teenagers for using p2p, you can sit uncomfortably well in the knowledge that you can't do a goddamn thing because you live in a society where your screams mean fuck all, where your word is worthless, and where you have the freedom to say what you want, but no one will give a shit either way, cause in the end, you are a panty sniffing surrender monkey, and they know that there is nothing you can do about it. And there isn't, and that's truly sad.

Update from my DRM struggle

2006-08-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

I know you all are just dyin to know what's up with that vid I purchased that was DRMed. Well, if you remember right, I couldn't install the license, don't know why, so I contacted tech support and talked to a nice enough person who has tried to but it's a no go.

The thing that really gets my goat is this: I was will to pay for the DL, had no plans on pirating, and was intending on buy more vids from these people if this one worked out. If you look at yourself, your friends, and others that you have talked to or heard from, you would know that people only pirate digital media that they would never buy in the first place. So they aren't a lost sale. DRM is trying to keep honest people honest, that's like keeping a stone a stone. It isn't necessary! When I like something, I pay for it, I could have DLed off P2P the entire Matchbox 20 alblum, but I didn't because I love the band, so I BOUGHT the CD. Because I know that they make money, and I want them to succeed and continue making music.

The corporate view of consumers is really rather dreary, to them, it seems like we are all a bunch of thieving hooligans who will rob them blind if we get the chance. Well, if you know anything about psychopathy you will understand why.

In tracking the behavioral mechanisms of the genesis of evil, one must keep both abhorrence and fear under control, submit to a passion for epistemological science, and develop the calm outlook needed in natural history. We must never lose sight of the objective: to trace the processes of ponerogenesis; where they can lead and what threat they can pose to us in the future. [...]

However, this tour of another reality will not be a psychological experiment conducted upon readers’ minds for the sole purpose of exposing the weak points and gaps in their natural world view. Rather, it an urgent necessity due to our contemporary world’s pressing problems, which we can ignore only at our peril.[...]
The nature of the phenomena under investigation as well as the needs of readers, particularly those unfamiliar with psy-chopathology, dictate the descriptive manner which must first introduce the data and concepts necessary for further compre-hension of psychologically and morally pathological occur-rences. We shall thus begin with human personality questions, intentionally formulated in such a way as to coincide largely with the experience of a practicing psychologist, passing then to selected questions of societal psychology. In the "ponerol-ogy" chapter, we shall familiarize ourselves with how evil is born with regard to each social scale, emphasizing the actual role of some psychopathological phenomena in the process of ponerogenesis. This will facilitate the transition from natural language to the necessary objective language of naturalistic, psychological, and statistical science to the extent that is nec-essary and sufficient. Hopefully, it will not be irksome for readers to discuss these matters in clinical terms.[...]
Moral evil and psychobiological evil are, in effect, inter-linked via so many causal relationships and mutual influences that they can only be separated by means of abstraction. How-ever, the ability to distinguish them qualitatively can help us to avoid a moralizing interpretation of the pathological factors, an error to which we are all prone, and which poisons the human mind in an insidious way, whenever social and moral affairs are at issue.
The ponerogenesis of macrosocial phenomena - large scale evil - which constitutes the most important object of this book, appears to be subject to the same laws of nature that operate within human questions on an individual or small-group level. The role of persons with various psychological defects and anomalies of a clinically low level appears to be a perennial characteristic of such phenomena. In the macrosocial phe-nomenon we shall later call "pathocracy", a certain hereditary anomaly isolated as "essential psychopathy" is catalytically and causatively essential for the genesis and survival of large scale social evil.[...]
Understanding the nature of macrosocial pathological phe-nomena permits us to find a healthy attitude and perspective toward them, thus assisting us in protecting our minds from being poisoned by their diseased contents and the influence of their propaganda. The unceasing counter-propaganda resorted to by some countries with a normal human system could easily be superseded by straightforward information of a scientific and popular scientific nature on the subject. The bottom line is that we can only conquer this huge, contagious social cancer if we comprehend its essence and its etiological causes. This would eliminate the mystery of this phenomenon as its primary survival asset. Ignota nulla curatio morbi! (Do not cure what you do not understand!)[...]
The everyday, ordinary, psychological, societal, and moral world view is a product of man's developmental process within a society, under the constant influence of innate traits. Among these innate traits are mankind's phylogenetically determined instinctive foundation, and the upbringing furnished by the family and the environment. No person can develop without being influenced by other people and their personalities, or by the values imbued by his civilization and his moral and reli-gious traditions. That is why his natural world view of humans can be neither sufficiently universal nor completely true. Dif-ferences among individuals and nations are the product of both inherited dispositions and the ontogenesis of personalities.[...]
However, a conscientious psychologist must ask the follow-ing questions: Even if the natural world view has been refined, does it mirror reality with sufficient reliability? Or does it only mirror our species' perception? To what extent can we depend upon it as a basis for decision making in the individual, socie-tal and political spheres of life?
Experience teaches us, first of all, that this natural world view has permanent and characteristic tendencies toward de-formation dictated by our instinctive and emotional features. Secondly, our work exposes us to many phenomena which cannot be understood nor described by natural language alone. An objective scientific language able to analyze the essence of a phenomenon thus becomes an indispensable tool. It has also shown itself to be similarly indispensable for an understanding of the questions presented within this book.
Now, having laid the groundwork, let us attempt a listing of the most important reality-deforming tendencies and other insufficiencies of the natural human world view.
Those emotional features which are a natural component of the human personality are never completely appropriate to the reality being experienced. This results both from our instinct and from our common errors of upbringing. That is why the best tradition of philosophical and religious thought have counseled subduing the emotions in order to achieve a more accurate view of reality. [...]
The natural world view is also characterized by a similar, emotional, tendency to endow our opinions with moral judg-ment, often so negative as to represent outrage. This appeals to tendencies which are deeply rooted in human nature and socie-tal customs. We easily extrapolate this method of comprehen-sion onto manifestations of improper human behavior, which are, in fact, caused by minor psychological deficiencies.
When another individual behaves in a way that we deem to be "bad", we tend to make a judgment of negative intent rather than seeking to understand the psychological conditions that might be driving them, and convincing them that they are, in fact, behaving very properly. Thus, any moralizing interpretation of minor psychopathological phenomena is erroneous and merely leads to an exceptional number of unfortunate consequences, which is why we shall repeatedly refer to it.[...]
Moving further, we often meet with sensible people en-dowed with a well-developed natural world view as regards psychological, societal, and moral aspects, frequently refined via literary influences, religious deliberations, and philosophi-cal reflections. Such persons have a pronounced tendency to overrate the values of their world view, behaving as though it were an objective basis for judging other people. They do not take into account the fact that such a system of apprehending human matters can also be erroneous, since it is insufficiently objective. Let us call such an attitude the "egotism of the natu-ral world view". To date, it has been the least pernicious type of egotism, being merely an overestimation of that method of comprehension containing the eternal values of human experi-ence. [...]
It is precisely this phylogenetically developed basis for our experience, and its emotional dynamism, that allow individuals to develop their feelings and social bounds, enabling us to intuit other people's psychological state and individual or so-cial psychological reality. It is thus possible to perceive and understand human customs and moral values. From infancy, this substratum stimulates various activities aiming at the de-velopment of the mind's higher functions. In other words, our instinct is our first tutor, whom we carry inside all our lives. Proper child-rearing is thus not limited to teaching a young person to control the overly violent reactions of his instinctual emotionalism; it also ought to teach him to appreciate the wis-dom of nature contained and speaking through his instinctive endowment
This substratum contains millions of years' worth of bio-psychological development that was the product of species' life conditions, so it neither is nor can be a perfect creation. Our well known weaknesses of human nature and errors in the natural perception and comprehension of reality have thus been conditioned on that phylogenetic level for millennia.[...]
Our zeal to control anyone harmful to ourselves or our group is so primal in its near-reflex necessity as to leave no doubt that it is also encoded at the instinctual level. Our in-stinct, however, does not differentiate between behavior moti-vated by simple human failure and behavior performed by individuals with pathological aberrations. Quite the contrary: we instinctively tend to judge the latter more severely, harken-ing to nature's striving to eliminate biologically or psychologi-cally defective individuals. Our tendency to such evil generat-ing error is thus conditioned at the instinctual level.
It is also at this level that differences begin to occur be-tween normal individuals, influencing the formation of their characters, world views, and attitudes. The primary differences are in the bio-psychical dynamism of this substratum; differ-ences of content are secondary. For some people the sthenic instinct supersedes psychology; for others, it easily relin-quishes control to reason. It also appears that some people have a somewhat richer and more subtle instinctual endow-ment than others. Significant deficiencies in this heritage nev-ertheless occur in only a tiny percentage of the human popula-tion; and we perceive this to be qualitatively pathological. We shall have to pay closer attention to such anomalies, since they participate in that pathogenesis of evil which we would like to understand more fully. [...]

We had to go there to get here, essentially, the question at hand is, why is it that corporations and lending institutions find it necessary to broadly categorize consumers as criminal by design, and to see them as unstable finacial entities/resources.

A corporation is naturally a psychopathic entity, because it isn't a real person, it's just a legal person that is simply out for it's own gain. We can accept that a corporation, the legal entity, is a psychopath easily, and that's okay. A piece of paper can't be expected to act in a moral way. The real question becomes, what happens when this psychpathing legal person is under the control of a psychopathic REAL person?

DRM schemes and privatization of natural resources are what happens.

You know the old saying, "takes one to know one" or "birds of a feather flock together" etc. These saying are talking about like knowing and seeing, or getting along best with, those who are like them.

From the excerpts above, we know and can logically agree, that man judges all other men by himself first. If he would do something, then he will naturally assume others may do it too, although social morality that is learned may cause him to conceal his own desire to actually do something, he will still consider such things possible. For instance, a person who is a pickpocket will naturally take measures to ensure that his own wallet is unpick-pocketable, because he knows what he can do and will do, and expects that there are others like him. If he is particularly psychologically unsound, he may see EVERY person as a potential pickpocket.

DRM is essentially anti-pickpocket software backed by legal persons who are psychopaths. Corporations and those who strongly believe and live within the philosophy of Big Business, natrually ponerize into a some psychopathic existance. A corporation destroys lives in pursuit of profit, anyone who denies this is in an illusion, how many families have been put on the streets with no jobs, no food, no clothing etc, how many countries have fallen prey to resource privatization. You see, imagine if you walked through a town and killed every other person on a given street. You would still be a mass murderer even if you gave each person you didn't kill a million dollars.

AOL leak leads to serious questions about DRM and Privacy

2006-08-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

In August 2006, AOL publicly released three months of search queries by 650,000 AOL users. Though AOL has removed the data from its site and rightly apologized, the grave damage is already done. The data quickly became available all over the Net, and AOL may have violated its own privacy policy as well as existing federal law. Both companies like AOL and Congress should heed the lessons of this Data Valdez and enhance protections for your privacy. On August 14, EFF asked [PDF] the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate AOL and require changes in its privacy practices.

AOL's actions demonstrate a shocking disregard for user privacy. Search terms can expose the most intimate details of a person's life. These details can be embarrassing and even cause great harm. Would you want strangers to know where you or your child work or go to school? How about everyone seeing search queries that reference your financial information, medical history, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation?"

Though the data was associated with random ID numbers, that information could still be connected back to an individual given enough clues, as this NY Times article clearly demonstrates. Whether it's because of vanity searches for your name or MySpace profile or searches related to your city and neighborhood, your search history could create a trail of breadcrumbs that ultimately leads to your doorstep.

This incident highlights the dangers of allowing search companies to store this kind of personal data. While AOL has rightly apologized, its customers deserve more than that -- AOL must take steps to rectify the damage done and to improve its privacy-protections in the future. Congress should also take note of this latest Data Valdez by creating stronger, crystal clear legal protections for user information and by limiting data retention.

In its complaint [PDF] to the FTC, EFF argues that the release of this data violated AOL's privacy policy and the Federal Trade Commission Act and should be investigated. EFF further requests that the FTC require AOL to notify customers affected by the disclosure and to stop logging search data except where absolutely necessary.

This raises serious questions about privacy policies, you know, the ones you never read yet agree to anyway, because if you don't agree, you can't use the service, which is kinda Nazi-esque when you really think about it - more on that later.

What does this have to do with DRM? Alot actually, anonymity negates the possibility of DRM being successful, that is why we see a rise in the loss of anonymity alongside the rise of DRM. Why did AOL leak the data, all excuses aside, we might be able to find the answer in something written about by Robert Cialdini in his book "Influence: The Science and Practice" in which he discuses the weapons of manipulation, one of which is Consistency. People want, and need, to be consistent in thoughts and actions, though truthfully this is built purely on ego and self importance, we want to seem to be consistent. When you choose coke, you consistently will continue to choose coke again and again. You convince yourself it's the taste, or something else, but that is only a small part of why we become loyal customers of something.

How is it a weapon of manipulation? Simple, because you want to appear consistent, you will naturally distort errors in your reasoning, and in some cases ignore them all together. I know, I know, I am getting there.

In order to get you to see the connection, I will need to get there in a very round about way, Consistency is the aspect of human behavior that governs above all things, romantic relationships. For instance, when you meet a guy or girl, or vice versa, and you fall in love, you expound at great lengths at how great they are. Because you said it, now you need to back it up. So you will start to shrink their faults and enlarge their values (Distortion) and forget or overlook (Delete) those things you can't distort. Take for instance, we all have a friend like this, a woman in a violent/abusive relationship where her man drinks, beats, and humiliates her often. Often times, at the beginning, she will leave him, start to clean up, only to relapse, take him back, and begin expounding again how great he is, how much he has changed etc. Why do they do this? Consistency, they are afraid that if they leave them again, they will appear inconsistent, so when Jimmy the Drunk, who promised he had changed for the better, changes back, she will start wearing makeup and long sleave blouses etc to cover the bruises (Deletetion), and changing his lack of self control to a bad childhood (Distortion).

Imagine that you and all consumers are like abused women, and all companies are drunken abusive men, then you will understand. For instance, companies start out okay, then get kinda bad, alot of consumers leave, then they clean up their acts, then those consumers come back, then the company goes bad again and again and again. Each time, fewer and fewer people leave the company, knowing that, though it's bad now, it will get better soon, and besides, they have invested alot in the company's equipment and services, just like the abused wife or girlfriend has invested time and energy into her man, and besides, she has told all her friends how he changed, she even has them singing his praises, how can she now admit that she made a mistake, that she needs help? It's only when it gets really bad that that may happen, or she might, as many women do, let it get so bad it kills her.

So what AOL is doing, is customer abuse, and each customer that takes it laying down is deleting, each one that says it's bad, but not bad enough is distorting, and each person that leaves, must now guard against relapsing.

As another instance, do you remember the parable of the Arab and the Camel? An Arab and his camel were on a journey, as night fell, the Arab set up a tent and went inside to sleep. In the middle of the night, the Arab awoke to the calls and cries of the Camel pleading, "Please Master, it is so cold, would you let me just stick my head in to the tent where it is warm?" Seeing no real harm in letting the camel stick his head in, the Arab allowed it and quickly went back to sleep. Sometime later, the Arab awoke again to the cries of the camel, "Oh please master, it is so very cold, and there is plenty of room in the tent, may I just move in to shoulders, then I will be warm, it is so very cold outside?" The Arab, though slightly annoyed took pity on the camel and consented. Not long after, the Arab was awakened yet again by the camel, "Oh dear master, benevolent master, if you move a bit closer to the edge of the tent, I could move in up to my midsection, because it is so very cold outside." The Arab, seeing that this was true, and nothing really would be lost, moved his bed close to the edge and the camel moved in. The camel continued to ask for a little more each time until the arab found himself squished against the tent wall, upon trying to get comfortable, the side of the tent gave way, and the Arab rolled out of the tent and down the Dune.

DRM and the AOL scam are part of a general strategy that is not a conspiracy, it's just a fundamental building block of capitalist business models.

To reinforce this idea, I will build off of a comment by Ian Clarke, the founder of Freenet

Of course much of Freenet's publicity has centered around the issue of copyright, and thus I will speak to it briefly. The core problem with copyright is that enforcement of it requires monitoring of communications, and you cannot be guaranteed free speech if someone is monitoring everything you say. This is important, most people fail to see or address this point when debating the issue of copyright, so let me make it clear:

You cannot guarantee freedom of speech and enforce copyright law
It is for this reason that Freenet, a system designed to protect Freedom of Speech, must prevent enforcement of copyright.

The problem is this, people want their cake, and want to eat it too, that has always been the illusion of capitalism. You cannot have freedom and safety, one or the other. The problem is, once you give away your freedom, you no longer have a choice anymore, so the safety you traded it for can be taken away, and you no longer have the right to choose it. The choice between freedom and safety is a false choice, because safety is not the opposite of Freedom, but in this choice presented, it looks like an either or proposition. The problem is, if you do not have freedom, then you are technically a servant, a slave. A slave can never be safe, so choosing safety is not choice at all.

That is what DRM leads to. The complete loss of Freedom. In the DRM choice, you aren't given any safety though, which is why DRM is a false choice. Either way, you lose. If you say yes to DRM, you lose freedom, if you say no to DRM, you lose freedom, the freedom to use what you want, because now, you are out of the loop. You can't listen to any music, because it is all licensed, and you have opted to say no.

How do you get around this? That should be a very simple proposition. I welcome your ideas on it :)

I understand if you don't see it this way, that's fine, as Machiavelli says, minds are of three types, One that can think for itself, One cand understand the thinking of others, and one that can neither think for itself, nor can it understand the thinking of others, the first is of the highest excellence, the second is excellent, and the third is completely useless.

So how is this all connected, I know I know, I am beating around the bush, but hopefully I will scare up some pheasants for us.

Putting these two things together requires a small amount of glue, called complementary strategies.

In order to secure control of market shares, you need people who don't have any other choice, in order to get them to give up their choice, they have to choose. By manipulating their consistency social program, you can get them to willing give up the choice to leave, well, not really, you always a choice, but you can force them into a feedback loop, a sort of social paradox, where they will consistently choose a certain choice from a set of predetermined false choices in order to maintain the social paradox. By limiting their ability to perceive the objective reality around them through PR campaigns which mix sexed up slick adverts with media play of arrests and prosecutions of violators, you create a version of reality where it becomes, choose us, or choose jail.

That is why AOL has done what it has done, and no amount of execusing and apologising/scapegoating will excuse it. They are letting you know "We know everything about you, and we can release it, isn't that nice?" and if you don't scream bloody murder about it, then you might as well be shaking your head and saying "hit me again Ike, and put some stank on it."

Why you should hate DRM

2006-08-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

Some of this post was 'copied' from ihatedrm.com, and I will be quoting sumthin fierce. Why should you hate DRM? Well, let's look at it this why, why should you hate a Tyrant?

Can you really answer that? Do you even know what a Tyrant is? A tyrant is someone who seize power, or control, without legal right to it. Like all tyrants, they pretend not to be, Hitler never said, well not exactly anyway, that he was an evil tyrant who wanted absolute domination, but we know that's what he was really after. Mousilini, Lenin, Stalin, Houssein, That Kim guy from Singapore etc. They were all tyrants, and some still are there, see Singapore.

If a tyrant is anyone who seizes unlawful powers, then anything that is a means of seizing unlawful powers is a Tyrannical thing, is it not?
U.S. Copyright Law says this:

"Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. [...]

quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported."
[U.S. Copyright Law]

The problem with DRM is that it prevents 100% of all of these, on top of this, Fair Use does extend to being able to create a backup copy of Digital media because DVDs and files can become corrupt or unuseable. All of these things should be considered a pair of a Human Being's right to quote, parody,comment, critique, and backup digital media once that media has been lawfully purchased, that is it! The court systems of the United States, and elsewhere, have through judgement/legal precendence and even WRITTEN LAW, shown that there should be and are certain INALIENABLE rights involved in copyrighted works on the part of the CONSUMER!

Therefore, if a man who seizes rights contrary to law is a TYRANT, and any means he uses to seize those rights, ILLEGALLY, is a TYRANNICAL means, therefore, if the LAW says, and PRECEDENCE EXISTS, that a person may quote, parody, comment or critique a copyrighted work and is ALLLOWED to use PARTS OF THE WORK for example, illustration, and education,that is legally protected FAIR USE, then we MUST CONCLUDE that DRM violates fair use and is THEREFORE; TYRANNICAL.

I am quoting here the FAQ of ihatedrm.com and bolding some parts, the emphasis is my own.

What is DRM?
DRM stands for Digital Rights Management but I like to call it Digital Restrictions Management because it isn’t about giving you more rights, it is about imposing more and more restrictions. DRM is a technological way for someone other than you to control how, when, and where you use content. By content I mean, electronic books, digital music, DVDs, CDs, photographs, printed materials, etc. There is a thirst for content by the consumer today and an even more insatiable thirst to “lock down” that content by the providers.

Don’t we need DRM with all of the piracy?
The plain and simple answer is no. This is complete marketing spin. Content providers want all of us to believe that piracy is out of control and that without DRM measures the entire industry would collapse. The truth of the matter is that DRM does nothing to stop piracy. Every single anti-copying measure on the market today can be simply and easily circumvented by pirates. The average person may not be able to do it but this stuff is a no brainer for a pirate.

If DRM isn’t about stopping piracy, what is it about?
DRM is about locking out the competition, whereby locking in consumers. Take the iPod for example. Songs downloaded from iTunes can never be played on any other MP3 player on the market because the DRM used is proprietary and only iPods know how to play it. Apple could license its DRM but it doesn’t because it locks out the competition which is good for their bottom line. Songs downloaded from iTunes will not play in any other device on the market. In fact, the DMCA would make it illegal if they did (more on that later).

[...]

Well, it’s just my iPod, no big deal right?
Wrong. The iPod and iTunes has opened Pandora’s Box so to speak. Apple has proven that the business model works and now everyone wants a piece of the pie. Every day companies are inventing new ways to remove you from your money. None of these ideas truly benefits the end user; aka, you. Books, photos, DVRs (Digital Recorders), Movies, TVs, DVDs, CDs all have DRM built in and it is becoming more and more invasive. There are some schemes out there that change your system config without your knowledge. They “phone-home” without your knowledge or consent. They have built in mechanisms to “self-destruct”. The best part about this is that the entertainment industry has lobbied the US government so hard over the last decade or so that they have support in the law in something called DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

Well, it is my right to make a copy for personal use; isn’t it?
No. Not anymore. The DMCA makes it an illegal act to circumvent any copy protections employed by the right holder. This trumps centuries worth of Fair Use laws. On top of that, there are current bills circulating Congress right now that will make it easier to sue “Joe User” for infringement than ever before. There are countless cases where the courts have sided with companies due to the DMCA where otherwise would have sided with the consumer.

I don’t care about any of this because it doesn’t affect me.
It currently may not directly affect you but it will affect everything near you and around you in the next couple of years. Bruce Sterling from Wired magazine says “You may not be interested in the digital rights war, but that doesn't mean you'll have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines. Because the other side is very, very interested in you.” I am hoping this resonates with you because it is a scary thing. Never before have we seen such a full assault on our personal freedoms in the digital space. We are being assaulted from the courtroom. We are being assaulted from the PR companies. We are being assaulted from our Congress. We are being assaulted from our own hardware in our own homes. Whether you care about it or not, there is, in fact, a digital rights war going on right under your nose. It is only a matter of time before it affects something you know and love or something you are bound to know or love in the future.

You mentioned courts. How are the courts assaulting us?
There are thousands of cases where the RIAA is suing its customers. There [even a case] where an 80 year old grandmother is being sued for pirating popular Gangster Rap artists like “50 cent”. There are cases where the RIAA is suing a dead person. There are cases where the RIAA is suing 8, 9, and 10 year olds. There are cases where the RIAA is suing a college student and suggests he drop out to pay for all of the fines. These are the types of people that want control over your computer, your TV, your stereo, YOUR legally purchased content. These are the people influencing YOUR politicians. These are the people who are writing these ridiculous restrictive laws.

Well if you don’t pirate you have nothing to worry about.
Not so fast. Because distribution of digital content is so fast, easy, and virtually costs nothing, conventional manual ways of tracking are totally obsolete. Before the internet, it was fairly easy to track down pirates because they needed physical space, they had physical media, and it cost them a bit of money to distribute their pirated wares. Nowadays, anyone with a computer and internet connection has the power to do this almost unnoticed. The need for automated mechanisms to track and find pirates is the only way to attack piracy. The problem is that automated systems see everything in black and white and they are only as smart as the people that design and program them. Even then, there are a multitude of bugs, loopholes, and general problems that one could run into. These systems make mistakes and with all the new bills being make into law, it will become harder and harder to defend oneself in the event of a false accusation. So even though you are not a pirate, it is very possible that your software/hardware may identify you as one.

Well the entertainment industry loses billions of dollars a year to piracy. Something must be done!
This simply is not true. All of the studies commissioned are from someone that has a financial stake in the industry. DRM software makers, copy protection and security software makers, and content providers all want you to believe we need this because it helps their bottom line. I’m not saying that there isn’t a problem with piracy. What I am saying is that there isn’t AS BIG of a problem with piracy as the industry would have you believe. How do you think they get these numbers? They take the total number of software package installed divided by the total number of software packages purchased. This gives them a piracy percentage. How do you suspect they find out how many software packages are installed on a given machine? The answer is they don’t and they can’t. It is an impossible number to figure out. Instead, they use surveys and then extrapolate whatever data they want. Don’t believe me, go check out a BSA study on the subject. Within my blog I analyzed, paragraph by paragraph, a study done by the BSA. It is laughable. Bottom line is that it is all propaganda to extend their influence over your stuff using DRM. The entertainment industry will say that every illegal copy of a piece of software, or a song, or a movie is a lost sale. I say rubbish.

Makes sense that an illegal copy of a movie is a lost sale. What gives?
On the surface this may be true but you really need to look a bit deeper to discover the truth. What is an illegal copy? According to US law, copying any LEGALLY purchased movie, song, or other content for personal use is ILLEGAL if there are any anti-copy protection measures at all on the source material. For instance, if you rip a song from a Sony CD whose DRM only lets you make files that are NOT compatible with your iPod, and subsequently change the format and copy on your iPod, you are now breaking the law even though you have been able to do this countless times in the past.. You are considered a pirate. You are considered a lost sale. You can thank the DMCA for that. Let’s look at other “lost sales”. Most of my friends pay for all the content they have but I have a few friends that continue to obtain hacked or cracked copies of software, movies, and music. When asked if they would purchase the hacked content if the pirate copy wasn’t available, 9 times out of 10 they say no. They would NOT purchase the content. These numbers don’t take this into consideration. They consider this a lost sale whether the person would buy the content or not. The entire basis for calculating these figures is flawed and any number derived from such a study is folly.

Man he really sums up the whole shpiel, DRM isn't about rights, it isn't about piracy, it's about locking in consumers, it is about MONOPOLIES! You fuckin played the game, you know you only win if you get the Green Properties and the Yellow Properties, having boardwalk and park place means crap if you have to run the yellow green slalom, guaranteed victory, that is what these guys are doing. They are passing of the browns and the reds and hoping to land on the yellows and greens, and maybe a few railroads while they are at it. DRM is a marketing strategy, you won't go to the competition, because if you do, you might be arrested. You will lose all of your music and all of your videos. Think about, software based DRM is flawed by design, the next step is hardware DRM, think about what will happen to you. All of the choices you will lose, you can't buy any computer, you can only buy and Apple computer, or an IBM or a DELL, and once you have the computer, you can't back up your files, because you can't copy them, you can't move music gotten on a DELL to an APPLE or and IBM. When the time comes to buy a new computer, guess who you are gonna go with, you are fucking right, you are gonna buy from the same company because if you don't, thousands of dollars in licensed music and licensed software will go right down the fucking drain.

On top of all this, we have already lost our rights to the DMCA, and shit like that is passing all over the world. We need to start screaming at the top our lungs, bloody fucking murder at these people. If you think you are fucked now, just wait till RIAA or Sony, or Apple fucks you over like a pack of semi-hardon sporting drunken desperados with a vengeful lust for dystopic justice!

Fuck DRM, fuck it up its stupid ass.

2006-08-27T17:19:00.000-07:00

DRM is fucking clown shoes [Wikipedia], I can't stand it, it is such a total hassle and it's ridiculous. I have just spend 2 hours trying to download a license from TotalVid for a video I downloaded. Okay, let's forget for a second that they only let you watch it 7 times, I would be happy with that, I mean, I have a notebook, I can write down the main pieces of info, 2-3 watches and I would have what I need from the video, but I can't even do that, cause I can't DL the license cause they are fucking around.

Why isn't the world mobilizing against DRM? I mean seriously, everyone and his brother should be pissed as hell at all this legal "Buy but don't own" bullshit! It is in fact Bullshit, DRM doesn't stand for Digital Rights Management, it stands for "Do Rape Me". You like that did you? I thought so, Do Rape Me, and that's what they are doing, they are Raping us like 2 dollars whores. We didn't even get our thirty pieces of silver for selling ourselves and our neighbors down the river when we just layed there a took it like red headed step-children from Big Business.

Let's forget for an instance the stupid system that DRM presents, let's forget that there is no security or encryption that is unbreakable when the message is MEANT to be decrypted. Software Pirates aren't paying for DRM, they aren't suffering, to them it's a laffable excuse for a copy protection, the only people who are suffering is us, is ME, the honest person who doesn't have time to hack or crack something. I have no intention of distributing a vid over P2P, well I do now, out of fucking revenge, but I won't, cause I honestly don't have the time or resources. So here I am, an honest person who just wants to see this video, just to get the info, I just wanna fucking watch, I don't want to steal it, I don't want to pirate it, I paid my money, I saw the company's selection, and said Hey! I like this site, if this works out, I'll buy the fucking lot. Yeah, guess what I am not going to do now. Yeah, you guessed it, I am not gonna buy a fucking thing from them again. And Hell, I might just be mad enough to learn all I can about DRM and rip it out and risk going to jail just to stick it to those fuckers! Well, maybe not, but I should. Totalvid my ass, TotalSkid-mark is more like it.

So that's the feel of this blog, I am going to make it my personal quest to SPEAK OUT against DRM, as a consumer. Maybe it won't do anything, hell, I know it won't, cause you don't give a fuck. But I do, I can't hack it, I can't compete against it, and Hell!, I can't do anything about except speak up and say my peace, and it is this. The law won't help us, the Companies don't care about us, there is not freedom cavalry coming up over the ridge. It's just you, and Me, and probably, it's just me, but Damnit! I am not gonna let it go down this way.

15 years from now, I am gonna be able to look at my children and explain to them that when corporations used lobbying to take away our fair use rights, our HUMAN RIGHTS, I did something. Either that or I will be in the Microsoft Concentration Camp because of sedition, but hey, if you gotta go, go with a smile! Yeah, and I said Human Rights goddamnit, Fair Use is a Human Right!

So if you are like me, and you are fucking tired of it, then comment here and show your support, if you know a site using DRM and screwing customers up the tailpipe, blast them here, write it up as a post and I will post here for you with credits if you like. If you have a site similar to this one that hates DRM, post a link, or email me a link to your site and I will post it on the side.

As the title says (in french) Let's fuck DRM in the ass. And any company or person who supports, let's fuck them too. (I'll take Sheryl Crow)