The anti-DRM stance [LWN.net]

The anti-DRM stance

Posted Jan 28, 2006 0:13 UTC (Sat) by jpick (subscriber, #29470)
Parent article: Stallman leads the GPL off a cliff (ZDNet)

Can a little action like the GPLv3 stance against DRM actually make a difference?

I think it might actually make a big difference. When the mainstream big companies keep trying to paint their ever-screwed-up DRM schemes as value for the consumer, eventually the consumers are going to get fed up and flee.

In the meantime, there will be a pretty substantial non-DRM ecosystem building up centered around GPLv3 licensed software. People will have somewhere to go when they get fed up with all the DRM crap.

People who choose the non-DRM ecosystem will have a plethora of legal content available to them via the LightNet (Creative Commons, Internet Archive, podcasting, etc.), and they'll also still have the option to bend the rules, rip their CDs, DVDs, and trade via their DarkNets.

The FSF knows what they are doing with CopyLeft. Copyleft works by maximizing the freedom of the end users, by restricting the freedom of the licensors to add additional restrictions. The anti-DRM stance of the GPLv3 is entirely consistent with that approach, and necessary.

I believe that the GPLv3 will succeed as a license for the same reason the GPLv2 succeeded.

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The anti-DRM stance

Posted Jan 28, 2006 2:18 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

It's already happenning with more technical minded folks.

For isntance Mythtv versus Windows XP Media Center...

Now mind you most people will buy the media center because it's 'newer' or 'more' then Windows XP, but doesn't cost extra.

But with people making a decision to go 'I want to do Tivo with my computer' they can generally choose between Mythtv and MCE. If they haven't made up their mind previously and have a bit of existing experiance in Linux they'll ask about it..

So I'll say:
MCE works with more hardware encoding cards.. Linux your restricted to using WinPVR or the external USB2 Plextor stuff, but with Linux you can use your existing just-capturing card with software encoding as long as it's not a ATI all-in-wonder combo card.

They are like 'hrmmm'.

Then I'll say:
Windows MCE is limited in scope.. With Mythtv you can many multiple capture cards with different inputs from media sources. You can have many multiple front ends (displays) and many multiple backends for storage and capture. If your running Linux on the desktop you can display a front end in a window. With MCE you can use certain media extenders or a xbox to show output on your tv or on a seperate device, but your going to be limited to one or two capture cards pretty much.

They are like 'hrmmm'.. (don't generally plan on running more then 2 cards)

Then the final bit;
With Mythtv you can play front end for Xmame and other emulators. You can rip cds, manage song libraries, rip dvds, transcode and use other Linux utilities to prepare media for use on other devices. You can then use something like vlc to stream or all sorts of other stuff.

With MCE you have to deal with DRM.

then they are like 'bingo!'

(then after that I tell them how difficult it is to install sometimes)

But you get the point.

As time goes on I notice more and more of this sort of thing happenning.

Nobody WANTS to deal with DRM as a end user, but people are going to put up with a certain amount if they desire the content. I don't think I'll ever see it go away, but it'll end up being pretty mild.

The anti-DRM stance

Posted Jan 28, 2006 10:08 UTC (Sat) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link]

Copyleft works by maximizing the freedom of the end users, by restricting the freedom of the licensors to add additional restrictions.

Nice! That's possibly the best summary of Copyleft I have seen.