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Apple DRM-free?

Cory Doctorow is an award-winning author of many books. He simultaneously distributes his work online at no charge and commercially through traditional book vendors. He also knows what DRM means for the reader/listener. Now he’s up for two Hugo awards, perhaps the most prestigious science fiction award.

What does this have to do with Apple and DRM freedom? Read this excerpt from the introduction to one of his recent books, Little Brother: (emphasis mine)

My agent, Russell Galen (and his sub-agent Danny Baror) did an amazing job of pre-selling rights to Little Brother in many languages and formats. Here’s the list as of today (May 4, 2008). I’ll be updating it as more editions are sold, so feel free to grab another copy of this file (http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download) if there’s an edition you’re hoping to see, or see http://craphound.com/littlebrother/buy/ for links to buy all the currently shipping editions.

A condition of my deal with Random House is that they’re not allowed to release this on services that use “DRM” (Digital Rights Management) systems intended to control use and copying. That means that you won’t find this book on Audible or iTunes, because Audible refuses to sell books without DRM (even if the author and publisher don’t want DRM), and iTunes only carries Audible audiobooks. However, you can buy the MP3 file direct from RandomHouse or many other fine etailers, or through this link.

Keep that in mind next time Apple tries to snow you into believing they care about your rights of first-sale, your right to read your books or listen to your audio whenever you want, or any of your rights as they intersect with digital restrictions management.

I bought an unlimited download account with Magnatune in part because they never had a DRM problem to overcome.

2009 03 20 J.B. Nicholson-Owens Digital Citizen Comments Off Permalink

You always lose with DRM

James Boyle, law professor and author of “The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind“, recently wrote about his mixed feelings concerning the release of his book for the Amazon Kindle, a portable proprietary electronic device for reading texts.

His points concerning DRM (which I prefer to call “digital restrictions management” because that acronym expansion clearly states what DRM is all about for the user) and the subsequent posts thereafter are interesting reading and I recommend reading them. I’d like to put a finer point on the issues that compel me to arrive at exactly the opposite conclusion: DRM is always dangerous for the reader, the tradeoffs are uniformly disadvantageous, and DRM should be avoided.

  • Anything you want to do with an e-book happens because the publisher allows it—sharing, copying passages, even reading all happen because the publisher allows it not because you paid for the privilege of reading the book. In the case of the Major League Baseball digital restrictions management (DRM), subscribers had already paid for access to the game recordings and had their access taken away from them. Warning or not, the only reason you get to do anything with DRM-encumbered media is because the DRM controller allows you to do that. Publishers, who often control the DRM, like this arrangement and this is the major reason why they pursue devices like the Amazon Kindle at all.
  • The Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits useful backups of media you can’t crack—Boyle points out in a follow-up response that the DMCA would probably prohibit reverse-engineering the Kindle book files even if Amazon was out of business and all you wanted to do was preserve your investment in Kindle files so you could continue to read the e-books you paid for. This should be a showstopper for anyone considering DRM-encumbered media of any kind. If you can’t make useful backups (media you can read anywhere at any time) then you are trapped to live by the publisher’s rules.
  • DRM limitations can be imposed on you for any reason—if the device you use to read/play DRM-encumbered media has a communication device on it (a wireless Internet radio, a GPS unit, a Bluetooth radio for short-distance communication) the device can be tracked. Tracking information could be a means of restricting access to the media: this book can only be read inside of these global coordinates, or a movie that can only be played when the player is in the vicinity of a particular Bluetooth device, for instance. Even a clock can be used to restrict: the book can only be read during certain times. The point is that unlike traditional media where you have full control when and where you can enjoy the media, DRM means you don’t have that control. The particular restrictions for DRM-encumbered media can vary as per the whim of the publisher, so there need not be any consistency or system to the restrictions. Only the regularity the publisher chooses by its technical choices.
  • DRM means those rules can change at any time—DRM means that the publisher can set the terms of control. If your media is played/viewed with a device that can be updated (such as most computers can), the DRM can behave differently any time the publisher chooses. If the publisher wants to give or take features, there’s nothing you can do to stop the change except not getting the DRM-encumbered media in the first place. For instance, Apple’s iTunes program has been updated many times and some of the updates were downgrades in functionality: in 2005 the number of times you can burn a playlist to a disc was reduced from 10 to 7. You can work around this particular restriction but the point is should you have to? What if you can’t work around a DRM limitation? Publishers can even condition use of new media on your acceptance of the new software which restricts you in new ways. No doubt, publishers would do this as an enticement to get reluctant users to take on new limitations.

Ostensibly publishers would have you lose your fair use rights, forgo treating friends like friends by loaning them your stuff, in exchange for a little technological convenience like being able to read an electronic screen in direct sunlight. A portable connection to the Internet using a clear screen is convenient and valuable, but it’s not worth trading away your rights.

2009 02 28 J.B. Nicholson-Owens Politicos Comments Off Permalink

Copyfighters: demonstrate better behavior by sharing with those who share with us.

On BoingBoing, there’s a thread talking about “the alarming number of lawyers being appointed by the Obama administration to the Department of Justice” and how this means “Bad news for people who believe in copyright reform, and greater freedom to share, remix, and reuse content online.”.

One of the quotes cited in support of the argument reads:

First off, there’s the #3 man at Justice, Thomas Perrelli, accurately described by CNET as “beloved by the RIAA“. Not only has this guy been on the wrong side in the courtroom, he’s fingered as instrumental in convincing the Copyright Board to strangle Web radio in its crib by imposing impossible fee structures.

I don’t agree with “strangl[ing] Web radio in its crib”. Web radio can go on so long as you share copies of tracks from the publishers/artists that let you share. Magnatune has an impressive catalog of tracks you can share under one of the Creative Commons licenses. They treat their artists well, licensing from them non-exclusively and giving them a bigger cut of the take per track than any RIAA label. Magnatune doesn’t play favorites amongst their artists (whereas RIAA labels give superstars like Britney Spears and The Rolling Stones far better deals than just-signed artists). Magnatune’s feeds won’t go away if the big corporate publishers’ tracks become unaffordable to rebroadcast. You and I can rebroadcast Magnatune’s stuff in our own feeds and radio stations. I’m guessing that Magnatune isn’t the only place doing this kind of thing either, they just happen to be an organization I have learned about.

We don’t benefit from identifying “web radio” solely with the RIAA label tracks that aren’t licensed for us to share. It would be a minor unfortunate outcome to not be able to afford to rebroadcast the most popular tracks; hardly the end of web radio. This might end up turning out to be a way to push people into getting interested in media that treats them better—media licensed to share and build upon.
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2009 02 09 J.B. Nicholson-Owens Free Software Comments Off Permalink

Time for leftists to fix a longstanding misattribution

Around this time of year or around Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, people cite King’s speeches. Most don’t cite “Beyond Vietnam” which sharply and rightly criticizes American foreign policy including calling the US “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”. As Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon point out, this speech wasn’t ignored in 1967. The speech was criticized. That criticism looks foolish today like anyone contending the Earth is flat. Unfortunately some of that criticism is wrongly attributed which I learned when I went to read the entire articles from which various people cite quotes.

Here’s the text of a letter I sent to Democracy Now!. Judging by how many leftist blogs, forums, and webpages of all kinds have apparently blindly repeated this error, the issue could just as well apply to them:

Since at least January 15, 2002 either Amy Goodman or Juan Gonzalez has introduced a replay of King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech and said, “Time magazine [later] called the speech ‘demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.’”.

You are probably referring to Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon’s article from 1995, “The Martin Luther King You Don’t See on TV” which features that line.

In the online version of that article Cohen and Solomon acknowledge that they misattributed a Life magazine quote to Time magazine (“Corrected version: An earlier version of this column mistakenly attributed a quote from Life to Time magazine.”).

You shouldn’t continue to repeat Cohen and Solomon’s error.

2009 01 19 J.B. Nicholson-Owens Politicos Comments Off Permalink

iTunes losing DRM is exception to the rule at Apple

Apple says they’ll drop the DRM on all iTunes tracks. Other music distributors (some which sell the same tracks as iTunes) have already done this. Dropping DRM on iTunes tracks would be less onerous than the current arrangement where some iTunes tracks still have DRM. But how do DRM-free iTunes tracks compare with Magnatune? What does that mean for you as a music listener? Should you do business with organizations that treats you badly?

What is DRM?

DRM are technical schemes that are designed to restrict what computer users can do with their computers. The acronym “DRM” means different things depending on the frame of reference with which you approach these restrictions. When viewed from the perspective of the user, DRM focuses on what users are not allowed to do with the work. Hence, from the user’s perspective “DRM” means “digital restrictions management”. Publishers who seek to limit what users can do think of “DRM” as “digital rights management” because publishers don’t want you to think about restrictions are in place or their effect on the many users these restrictions are designed to disenfranchise.

There’s no limit to what can be restricted by DRM schemes (anymore than there’s a limit to the kinds of computer programs programmers can write or images artists can sketch on paper) and one is not better off to understand freedom-related issues like DRM in terms of specific restrictions. But to give a few examples, DRM schemes include methods of stopping people from running arbitrary programs, installing software on computers, playing media files, restricting seeking around in movies (say, to jump to a particular scene without first watching ads), preventing playing movies DVDs in certain DVD players, and reducing how you can use media (editing and sharing playlists, for example).

Without DRM, you could decide how many times you wanted to burn copies to physical media, make useful copies for yourself that you could play back later, skip around in the file without restriction when you play the file back, or play from any device capable of reading the file. Without DRM, there’s no danger that technological restrictions will be imposed on you later; the files will not become less playable later on. With DRM-free media there’s no need to invoke special programs do these things. Your purchases are truly yours to play as you wish anywhere at any time. With DRM, the publisher can limit all of these things and more depending only on how much effort they’re willing to put into implementing such restrictions.

So when we hear that Apple is dropping DRM on their iTunes tracks, we should put this in perspective not just for Apple users but anyone who enjoys any kind of media. We should better understand what the alternatives are so we don’t step into a well-advertised trap.
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2009 01 11 J.B. Nicholson-Owens Free Software Comments Off Permalink

The Free Software Foundation shows us how to handle copyright infringement

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) alleges that Cisco, famous for making equipment used to route data around the Internet, has infringed on the FSF’s copyright in numerous programs used in their Internet routing equipment marketed under the Linksys brand (read the complaint and more background about the case).

It’s important to note some differences between how the FSF handles copyright infringement and what the FSF does in their everyday work from other famous copyright infringement litigators:

  • Not jumping into litigation lightly. The FSF tried to work with Cisco for 5 years but new copyright infringement issues came to the FSF’s attention faster than Cisco would resolve old infringement issues.
  • The FSF was initially silent about the issue. No press release, nothing aimed at embarrassment as far as I can tell; the FSF knows that you can often gain compliance with an inquiry about the issue and some advice on how to comply with the license. The FSF aims to fix practical problems and they have a strong record to point to should anyone question their sincerity. The FSF knows they have the courts to fall back on, but why take that long and expensive route when being nice will do the job?
  • No threats of suing Cisco into insolvency. Unlike the RIAA and MPAA which seek maximum penalties against poor individuals regardless of the actual value of the alleged infringement, the FSF first seeks license compliance in their copyright infringement cases. And Cisco is a multinational corporation worth billions of dollars, not a person!
  • The FSF builds on strengths by licensing to share. This means the FSF is helping distribute copyrighted works that don’t promote a culture of separation and helplessness like proprietary software distributors do. Anyone who infringes copyright of works intended to be shared and improved immediately gains sympathy because infringers are working against building a better world and treating nice people harshly.
  • Get your facts straight before you litigate. Don’t risk coming off as a jerk by treating serious litigation frivolously and suing the wrong people as the RIAA has done.

A few years ago at Roger Ebert’s “Ebertfest”, a movie festival in Urbana, Illinois, I was proud to tell Jack Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association of America, and the assembled crowd that copyright infringement can be handled differently; one can work with alleged infringers to help build a mass of public support ready to stand by the copyright holder instead of the alleged infringer. I specifically noted how the FSF and other free software advocates handle allegations of infringement because nothing is stronger than a working example (“running code” as Eben Moglen points out). I don’t think these points were lost on the late Valenti or on the crowd; the public is increasingly aware of ordinary people being pushed into insolvency by RIAA/MPAA lawsuits. Fueling public anger, some of those lawsuits are filed without regard to the facts on the ground.

I’m still proud of the FSF’s behavior. I hope you will join me in helping the FSF by becoming a member and by running more free software.

2008 12 11 J.B. Nicholson-Owens Free Software Comments (1) Permalink

Spend your way to relevancy!

Today is Buy Nothing Day, a day when many around the world encourage you to understand how restrictive it is to be a consumer. A consumer-driven economy weakens people by reducing us to purchasing machines that earn money in order to spend it mostly on things we don’t need. We become defined by what we buy; business spends billions telling us to get on the fashion treadmill by buying things so we remain relevant in the eyes of our fashion-observing neighbors. In this mode there’s no room for being politically active citizens who care about the world in which we live. Citizenship encourages caring about the community, the environment, and ourselves. Such thinking is likely to get you to reach the conclusions Annie Leonard reached some time ago—all the steps of a consumerist life are killing us and none of these steps are sustainable. Even if you get a little happiness from purchasing stuff that joy is short-lived, so on its own terms consumerism is not sustainable. In the long run you discard most of the stuff you buy. The ethical arguments against treating people as we do (sending children into mines for some of the raw goods to make more computers, for instance) are powerful on their own. Clearly we need a better way to live.

2008 11 28 J.B. Nicholson-Owens Politicos Comments Off Permalink

DRM is always anti-user

In a discussion of Defective by Design’s DRM boycott on Boing Boing, David Mershon asks, “I understand why they feel the need to do this, they consider phrases like “Digital Rights Management” to be Orwellian doublespeak, but I think this kind of private language prevents effective outreach. Why not just say “DRM” and be done with it?”

No user likes DRM. What Cory Doctorow said about Sony is really true for all DRM: “No Sony customer woke up one morning and said, “Damn, I wish Sony would devote some expensive engineering effort in order that I may do less with my music.”". Expanding the DRM acronym (to mean “digital restrictions management” or “digital rights management”) is a matter of what side you’re on. If you’re on the user’s side, the side that says you ought to be able to treat stuff you bought as your own, you’ll not forget that “digital rights management” is “private language” as well. It’s language that exists to promulgate the publisher’s perspective instead of the user’s perspective thus reframing the debate to getting us to believe that our needs are less important or completely ignorable. The thing that makes DRM interesting to publishers is how well it can restrict users from doing what users want to do. Hence digital restrictions management is a more honest way of looking at what DRM means.

I don’t find that this language prevents outreach at all. I find that if you take the time to learn what the viewpoints are and explain them to those who don’t know, people will listen. I understand software freedom and I come across DRM restrictions every day in my work. When my clients at work are adversely affected they ask me what gives—why can’t they work with the media they legally obtained as they had in the past when they bought books, LPs, and cassettes. I explain how DRM works to them using examples of what they just experienced and they understand why I expand DRM to “digital restrictions management” and listen when I explain how to seek out computers and media that are DRM-free.

New Mac hardware won’t display certain movies on all video display hardware. Apple uses DRM to restrict the user from sending the video to any device the user wants. The details of the restriction—exactly which monitors will work as users expect and which won’t—misses a larger point: when you run proprietary software or accept hobbling hardware who is in control of your computer, you or the proprietor? I should be able to play my media on any of my devices anywhere at any time for any reason. I should be allowed to transcode my media to anything I like without restriction, sync to any of my devices I like using any free software I want (another activity Apple apparently doesn’t like), and make as many copies for my own use as I want including unhobbled copies without encryption, region coding, and so on (in order to maximize the chances I can play it back later). I should be allowed to share the fruits of my knowledge with others. I should be free to take full advantage of my fair use and first sale rights (George Hotelling’s experience illustrates this is hard with DRM and ultimately only possible with the proprietor’s consent). Apparently Apple is down with Hollywood’s program on all of this and consumer analysis typically interprets events as if it’s my job to look out for Apple (“what are they gonna do?” as another poster said). Their business goals are not in my interest nor are those goals my responsibility or concern. So I won’t give them my money.

2008 11 28 J.B. Nicholson-Owens Free Software Comments Off Permalink

What happens when you focus on the price of melamine but not its value?

Recently the FDA issued an import alert which allows detainment without inspection of “all milk products, milk derived ingredients and finished food products containing milk from China due to the presence of melamine and/or melamine analogs”. The FDA notes that this is a a recurring problem: “In 2007, bulk vegetable protein products imported from China were contaminated with melamine and melamine analogs, apparently from deliberate contamination.”.

It’s educated speculation that food processors and national inspection agencies around the world engage in behavior like this guided because of the failure of a profit-first mindset to address the real needs of the people. When one is motivated primarily by profit instead of our mutual well-being they make decisions to increase the “apparent volume” of food by adding water and adding melamine “in order to inflate the apparent protein content found in the product”. Similar choices are made when passing laws: why else would the US tolerate laws that allow Texas cattle ranchers to sue for “false defamation of perishable food” and “business disparagement” (these laws became more famous when Oprah had Howard Lyman on her show and said “It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger!” after Lyman spoke about how the cows were treated)? Why tolerate an FDA that doesn’t inspect every cow when mad cow disease breaks out like the US Government Accounting Office told us the FDA failed to do back in February 2001? Why is the US so tolerant of melamine-laced products on the market at all?

The same could be said for worker abuses which lead to sweatshops and low prices at shops like Walmart. The big difference between these problems is that it is harder to convince people whose media feeds them a steady diet of self-centeredness (distractions including celebrity news instead of real news, ads blaring “low low prices!” instead of “living-wage workers!”, and political debates that only allow corporate-vetted candidates to name a few) to speak up in favor of someone else’s health instead of their own.

How much are your retail store “savings” and the free-market religious myth worth to you relative to your health and the health of others?

2008 11 16 J.B. Nicholson-Owens Politicos Comments Off Permalink

A test for the liberal Left: How will you hold Democrats accountable?

Apparently a lot of you have given the Democrats your votes, your time, and your money. What will you do if President-elect Obama continues President Bush’s high crimes and misdemeanors thus making Obama as multiply impeachable as Bush already is? Ralph Nader succinctly lays out the problem for Obama continuing the crimes of Bush’s presidency: (the link and formatting is mine)

Much is already known and documented officially and by academic studies and media reporting. In the category of “high crimes and misdemeanors”, are

  1. the criminal war—occupation of Iraq,
  2. systemic torture as a White House policy,
  3. arrests of thousands of Americans without charges or habeas corpus rights,
  4. spying on large numbers of Americans without judicial warrants and
  5. hundreds of signing statements by George W. Bush declaring that, he of the unitary presidency, will decide whether to obey the enacted bills or not.

To its everlasting credit, the conservative American Bar Association sent to President Bush three reports in 2005-2006 concluding that he has been engaged in continuing serious violations of the Constitution. This is no one-time Watergate obstruction of justice episode ala Nixon that led to his resignation just before his impeachment in the House of Representatives.

Nearly two years ago Senator Obama, contrary to what he knows and believes, vigorously came out against the House commencing impeachment proceedings. It would be too divisive, he said. As one of one hundred Senators who might have had to try the President and Vice President in the Senate were the House to impeach. He should have kept impartial and remained silent on the subject.

As President, he cannot remain silent and do nothing, otherwise he will inherit the war crimes of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and become soon thereafter a war criminal himself. Inaction cannot be an option.

Violating the Constitution and federal laws is now routine. What is routine after awhile becomes institutionalized lawlessness by official outlaws.

Ralph Nader circa November 13, 2008

How will the liberal Left hold Obama accountable when they were willing to let the Democratic Party get away with taking impeachment “off the table”? Hoping for change won’t be enough. The old excuses tried to make Democrats look powerless to stop Bush while Democrats wrote more checks for war, agreed with Bush on FISA, legalized telecommunication corporation immunity alongside Bush, supported bailouts which will probably come to over $1T, and so on. But excuses won’t hold water with the most facile observer of Congress because Democrats have held a majority in the House and Senate since 2006 and soon there will be a Democrat in the White House. Tight senate races might give the Democrats an unfilibusterable supermajority in the Senate.

This presidency is really a test for anyone who supports the Democratic Party. Will there be organized publicly-visible objection like the opposition to the Iraq war where millions gathered in the streets before that invasion began? Or will there be silence like what happened during Gore, Kerry, and Obama’s presidential campaigns? Without serious organization and objection who will challenge impeachable crimes?

2008 11 15 J.B. Nicholson-Owens Politicos Comments Off Permalink