Pages not Rendering Properly? Home News About me Contact Me Phorm's History Porcelain Pictures Services Projects Articles Whitepapers Getting Started With Linux Documentation Reviews Dispute Archives Page Archives Yearly Indexes Archived Links Terms and conditons of webhosting Links Sitemap Search Benscomputer.no-ip.org Copyright Information Privacy Policy |
As many people now
know Sony BMG is under heavy fire for their use of the XCP program in
order to facilitate DRM. The use of DRM is unacceptable in any form, I
do not condone piracy, however companies have to trust their consumers.
It is like a pub that expects you to return to the bar every five
minutes jsut to prove you havent given your pint to a minor. Add to that the fact that DRM doesn't work, it is easy to circumvent. Yes that is illegal in the UK and several other countries, but so is downloading MP3's. How many people is it realistically likely to stop? Added to the fact that even if they do manage to make a DRM solution that can't be broken through software, anybody can buy a cable from Maplin that comes out one port on their soundcard, and back in another. All you do is play the file and record simultaneosly, and you have a DRM free copy. So why do they feel the need to use DRM? it isn't going to stop anyone. To make matters
worse I have heard rumblings that the next step will be to form a
partnership with hardware manufacturers, and to include hardware DRM.
This will still be circumventable with the cable above, and worse than
that will make many open source applications illegal. This cannot be
tolerated, it will restrict the free exchange of ideas, which already
has enough restrictions on it, through companies such as MS trying to
enforce software patents. If hardware DRM does come into force then the
only people it will affect are law abiding users, after all if you are
willing to download MP3s then I am sure you wont think twice about
circumventing the DRM in one way or another. The law abiding users
amongst us however will suffer greatly, did you know that Sonys XCP
phones home regularly? Do you really want hardware that does that? What
happened to trusting the consumer and respecting peoples right to
privacy? Another clause in the EULA of XCP reads along the lines that
if you are declared bankrupt you must turn over your CD! Why?? what
purpose does this serve? you dont have to turn over a copyrighted book,
so why an audio cd? If you have read this far
then you
probably feel much the same way as me about this issue, we cannot and
will not stand for these restrictions beign imposed. So what can you do
about it? Simple really, send a letter to your MP as sooner or later
this issue is likely to come up in the commons. Secondly completely
boycott ANY DRM CDs, non DRM versions are usually availbale, so contact
the vendor and ask for a DRM free version. You can tell whether a CD
has DRM in a number of easy ways. If you are physically in a shop,
check the case for the CD logo, Phillips will not allow any DRM
on the registered CD format, so if this logo is there you are likely to
be safe. If you are online shopping then check the description, they
are not allowed to call it an audio cd if it contains DRM. |