Nobody but the studios seem happy about Apple’s implementation of HDCP on its recent laptops. The situation leaves people who legally purchased movies unable to play them on external displays (yeah, that means you can’t watch movies on the video projector you borrowed from the office).
A related story may reveal the extent of the problem. [...]

Posted November 24, 2008 by Casey
Categories: Politics & Controversy, Technology. Tags: anti-consumer, apple, CEA, Consumer Electronics Association, copy protection, drm, HDCP, MacBook, mpaa, Public Knowledge, selective output control, SOC. Be the first one.

I think Richard M. Stallman would agree with xkcd: DRM is evil. It’s bad for both customers and content creators — even Hilary Rosen and Steve Jobs have their doubts about it.

Posted October 15, 2008 by Casey
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Dispatches, Technology. Tags: copyfight, dmca, drm, futureproofing, piracy, xkcd. 2 Comments.

Following Steve Jobs’ ant-DRM post, people began to wonder if Apple was just pointing fingers or really willing to distribute DRM-free music via their online store. Yesterday we learned the answer.
Apple and EMI announced yesterday they would offer DRM-free 256bit AAC premium downloads, priced at $1.29 each.
Apple, DRM, DRM-free, EMI, ITMS, digital restrictions management, digital [...]

Posted April 3, 2007 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Books, Movies, Music, Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Technology. Tags: apple, digital restrictions management, digital rights management, drm, DRM-free, EMI, itms, itunes, iTunes Store. One Comment.

Steve Jobs’ Thoughts On Music is surprisingly open and frank, almost blog-like, for the man and the company especially know for keeping secrets.
Jobs is addressing complaints about Apple’s “proprietary” DRM used in the iTunes Music Store.
There is no theory of protecting content other than keeping secrets. In other words, even if one uses the most [...]

Posted February 7, 2007 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property. Tags: apple, drm, ipod, itms, itunes, music, music digital rights management, music stores, steve jobs. 2 Comments.

People hate DRM. It prevents law abiding folks from enjoying the music and movies they’ve purchased, and it does little to prevent crackers from making illegal copies.

In response, somebody’s created I Hate DRM, “a site dedicated to reclaiming consumer digital rights.”

And on the content creator’s side: Creative Remixes For The People.

Posted April 4, 2006 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property. Tags: artists against copyright, consumer rights, copyfight, copyright, creative remixes for the people, crftp, drm, i hate drm, intellectual property law. One Comment.

Within minutes of each other, two friends from separate corners of the world sent me a tip about the following:
Slashdot pointed to this BBC News that talks about the ill effects of DRM on libraries.
What’s DRM? It’s that “digital rights management” component of some software and media that supposedly protects against illegal copying, but more [...]

Posted February 3, 2006 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: copyfight, copyright law, digital rights management, drm, drm more restrictive than copright, libraries, library. Be the first one.

Donna Wentworth is now saying what I’ve been saying for over a year now. Digital Rights Management (DRM) isn’t about preventing copyright violations by ne’er-do-wells, it’s about eliminating legal me2me fair use and locking in customers. In Your PC == A Toaster, Wentworth quotes Don Marti saying:
Isn’t it time to drop the polite fiction that [...]

Posted August 15, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property. Tags: big money, copyfight, copyright, digital rights management, donna wentworth, drm, drm'd toaster, drmed toaster, hollywood, microsoft, proprietary, toaster, toaster drm, toaster hacks. 5 Comments.

The news came out last week that the biggest music consumers — the ones throwing down cash for music — are also the biggest music sharers. Alan Wexblat at Copyfight says simply: “those who share, care” (BBC link via TeleRead).
Rather than taking legal action against downloaders, the music industry needs to entice them to use [...]

Posted August 5, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property. Tags: consumers, content, content consumers, content owners, content producers, copyfight, copyright, downloaders, drm, evangelists, fair use, fairuse, lawsuits, legal alternatives, marketing, music, music consumers, music industry, music marketing, music sharing, owners, producers, share, sharing. 8 Comments.

Jenny Levine, over at The Shifted Librarian, is telling the latest chapter in her long-running struggle with DRM.
Now, I’ve installed a lot of Windows software in my day, so I feel pretty confident in my ability to double-click on an installation file. However, when I try to install [Yahoo Music Engine], I get three screens [...]

Posted July 19, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Blink, Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Technology. Tags: ancient technology, drm, entertainment industry, error message, jenny levine, music engine, problems, windows software, yahoo music. 2 Comments.

I’m not sure what to think about Steve J’s WWDC announcement (video stream) of Apple’s switch to x86 processors. Coverage at MacNN, Mac Rumors, Ars Technica, etc. I’m not sure, but it would be easier to take if I wasn’t the only one who saw conspiracy in it. Does this relate to Intel’s recent shoehorning [...]

Posted June 6, 2005 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Technology. Tags: apple, arstechnica, copyright, cpu, drm, emulation, guinea pigs, intel, itunes, macc, macintosh, macnn, macrumors, pcworld, ppc, tomshardware, wwdc, x86, x86 emulation, x86 processors. 3 Comments.