[Seth-Trips] Defective By Design anti-DRM protest, June 10 [ampere@on.evil-wire.org: DRM Action: 6/10 Apple Event Info (fwd)]

[Nathaniel Smith]

On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 02:11:40PM -0700, Praveen Sinha wrote:
> To me, this fight on a broader basis is about trade, the DMCA, and
> intellectual enclosure - the digital equivalent of the British Salt
> Tax on India.  DRM as a technology, like all other technologies, is
> wholly neutral -- it's the policy around that will shape it's
> adoption.  Getting back to apple I have 3 questions for anyone still

I don't follow this issue in super-fine detail either, so I may be
missing something, but my impression has been that there is no DRM
policy that does not have quite horrendous effects.

In particular, for DRM to be effective, it must have legal teeth like
the DMCA (maybe that's still not enough for it to be effective, but
that seems like a minimum requirement).  And then, the DMCA is the
direct cause of our friendly host publishing poetry anonymously for
reasonable fear that his poetry would be found illegal...

> reading:
>  1) What choice does apple have as a market player?

The answer I've heard to this before is that historically, the
entertainment industries have talked a big game, made huge demands,
and then totally folded when faced down.  I don't know if this is
what would happen today; do you have some reason to suspect that it is
not?

If it is true, then Apple's DRM gains them a market advantage -- by
giving in rather than presenting a unified front with other tech
companies, they get to be among the first people selling stuff, and
this has obviously stood them well.  Besides, if they didn't do that,
then someone else would have... basically a prisoner's dilemma
situation.

The only problem is that what they are trading to get this market
advantage is our rights :-(.  So it seems quite logical to me to fight
back through the market, by raising awareness and attempting to reduce
consumption of restricted systems.

Cheers,
-- Nathaniel

-- 
"But suppose I am not willing to claim that.  For in fact pianos
are heavy, and very few persons can carry a piano all by themselves."