RIAA

Hi, I'm Sarah Adelaida and I am working at the FSF this summer as part of a newly launched internship program. I will be posting new DRM news each Friday. If you'd like to know more about me read http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/sarah-mcintire-introduction/ -- if you see stories we should mention here, please let me know.

Steam, eight ways to violate your freedoms Steam is an online service by Valve Corporation which allows you to purchase and download games that you access by signing in to an account. According to their user agreement, access to games is associated with the account, not the computer. But before you sign up, I urge you to take a look at the subscriber agreement first. You may not like what you find: DRM and several violations of the four freedoms.

• As far as I can tell, the software even won't work on my operating system. It only works for Windows and Mac.
• You must have an Internet connection to play your games.
• People can't offer it in Internet cafes (no commercial usage):"Agreement does not allow you to exploit the Steam Software or any of its parts for any commercial purpose including, but not limited to, use at a Cybercafe"
• You're forced to install Steam's software updates onto your computer.
• You're only permitted to use Steam Software how Steam says you can.
• You do not own the games you buy:"The Steam Software is licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Steam Software."
• You're not allowed to modify Steam Software.
• You are not allowed to re-sell your game.

Steam is a perfect example of how DRM curtails your rights.

MPAA, RIAA Lawyer: We reject the view, that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works

In response to the idea of an exception to an existing copyright law which would permit users to remove DRM from their media when the corresponding keyservers will be permanently shut down, Steven Metalitz--the Washington, DC lawyer who represents the MPAA and RIAA--is quoted in a letter with this gem:

We reject the view, that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works. No other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards. No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so.

Steven, you're missing the point. Nate Anderson from Ars Technica says it best: "While computers and electronics devices do break down over time, these music tracks were crippled by design."

Barnes and Noble is offering ebooks with DRM on books already in the public domain

Barnes and Noble is offering DRMed promotional copies of its new ebooks, except these books are already in the public domain. B&N "explains" why the public domain books it's giving away "free" are protected by DRM:

'We selected public domain titles as our free eBooks because these books are traditionally among our customers' favorite works of literature.... Also, for copyright protection purposes, these files are encrypted and cannot be converted or printed.'.

Um, what? How can Barnes and Noble "protect" copyright on something that is already in the public domain?

The AP will no longer discuss its DRM for news

If you haven't heard -- the Associated Press is considering putting DRM on their news.

How exactly this is going to be done, I'm still not quite sure. From what I can tell, they are going to track the news by using some sort of formatting. Honestly, no one seems to understand how DRM on their news is going to work, which is why it's terrible that the AP will no longer discuss it. The irony is rich, a news organization refuses to discuss any more news on its own news.

RIAA Tenenbaum Update

Tenenbaum is the second RIAA file sharing defendant to go before a jury. He's a 25-year-old Boston University graduate student who was accused of sharing 30 songs. Apparently, because Tenenbaum has admitted to sharing his tracks he can be fined up to $150,000 per track under the Copyright Act, if the jury determines he shared these songs willfully. The RIAA asked the judge to make it clear that the maximum that can be fined per song is encouraged. Tenenbaum is the second person to go to trial, the first being Thomas-Rasset. The RIAA has sued around 30,00 people over the last six years, but most have been settled out of court. --The jury charged Tenenbaum with $22,500 per song--

Amazon gets sued for deleting 1984 ebooks

A teenager who was using his Kindle ebook reader to read 1984 for school is suing Amazon for deleting his copy remotely. He didn't just lose the book, he lost all of the notes he was taking digitally in the margins. His attorney argues, “Technology companies increasingly feel that because they have the ability to access people's personal property, they have the right to do so. That is 100% contrary to the laws of this country.”

Well said.

Hi, I'm Sarah and I am working at the FSF this summer as part of a newly launched internship program. I will be posting new DRM news each Friday. If you'd like to know more about me read my letter of introduction. If you see stories we should mention here, please let me know.

Netflix, Why Do You Hate My Operating System?' Periodically, over the past couple of weeks my friend has been coming over to my apartment to watch movies with me. He has a membership to Netflix and I was delighted to learn that Netflix offers streaming of movies at no extra charge with many of its DVD rental plans. The convenience and wide selection of movies made me seriously consider signing up for my own Netflix account. I completely lost any such interest in signing up for an account when I found out Netflix doesn't support my GNU/Linux operating system and promotes proprietary software.

The DRM imposed on Netflix makes streaming unable to automatically work with GNU/Linux, unless I download proprietary software applications and even then, it's still not guaranteed to work. Basically, Netflix's DRM restrictions ask me to surrender my control over my laptop (by downloading these proprietary applications) in order to watch movies. Netflix should not even ask me to give up my freedoms in order to use their services.

More than six months ago Defective by Design asked users to “Send Netflix one of our holiday promise cards to say why you are boycotting their streaming service, and ask them to remove the DRM by June 2009... If Netflix fails to meet this ever-so-polite request, we'll be working on a mass cancellation of Netflix service in the new year.”

It is now the "new year", a whole seven months since Defective by Design and many Netflix users have politely asked Netflix to remove DRM from it streaming movies. Netflix has ignored its customers' requests to remove this DRM. It has refused to provide support to those who do not run Mac OS X or Windows. Their neglect of customers' requests show that Netflix clearly has no regard for their customers' rights. It's time to think about dropping subscriptions to Netflix.

Photo by Josh Bonnain, CC-BY

DRM News for this week:

Actually...DRM Isn't Dead By now you've probably seen the headlines “RIAA says DRM is Dead”. Wouldn't it be wonderful if one of DRM's biggest cheerleaders, the RIAA, retracted its support for this restrictive software? Unfortunately, it is too good to be true. Jonathan Lamy, representative of the RIAA, was misquoted by TorrentFreak saying "DRM is dead, isn't it?”, but what Lamy actually said was "There is virtually no DRM on music anymore, at least on download services, including iTunes." While is it true many music providers are now moving toward offering DRM free music downloads, certainly not all of them are. Not only that, but many other products besides music files continue to be restricted by DRM. In the end, whether or not Lamy actually said DRM is dead is irrelevant, we all know that the truth, regrettably, is otherwise.

Apple Withdraws Legal Threats from Bluwiki; EFF follows suit In November 2008 Apple legally threatened Bluwiki for a user created wiki page that discusses the possibility, which was unresolved, of how to use software other than Apple software on iPods and iPhones to sync media content. Bluwiki is a wiki that operates without censorship, pop-ups or banner ads. Apple sent a cease and desist e-mail to Bluwiki, claiming the pages violated the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions and infringed on copyrights they held. Bluwiki responded by taking down the pages and sought legal help. "The EFF and the San Francisco law firm of Keker & Van Nest sued Apple on behalf of OdioWorks, which runs Bluwiki, asking a court to reject Apple's claims and allow Bluwiki to restore the discussions." This month Apple withdrew its legal threats and the EFF withdrew its charges against Apple in response. Apples withdrawal of these allegations are encouraging, but Apple has still left a threatening permeate impression: Not only has Apple infected their devices with DRM, but users can't even discuss alternative bits of software to use without the fear of being sued.

Tesco Digital Removes DRM from its Tracks Not only does Tesco Digital offer DRM-free music on in its 15 million tracks, it will allow users to convert tracks they've previously purchased from Tesco Digital from WMA to MP3. This conversion will be offered for free until the end of the month.

Update: Palm Pre Will Now Sync With iTunes Last week I wrote about Apple's "bug fix-update" for iTunes on the Palm Pre. This "bug-fix" would essentially no longer allow the user to sync to iTunes from their Palm Pre. This week Palm responded with their own update, and the Pre now syncs with iTunes again. The war between these two proprietary companies continues. Be careful, don't get caught in the crossfire.

The Swindle Strikes Again! Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, Apologizes Amazon deleted purchased copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from customer's Kindles. Apparently, these electronic copies were not authorized properly by the publisher, so Amazon simply deleted the copies remotely. Amazon couldn't have chosen more symbolic books to remove could they? This is proof, once again, of the power DRM gives Amazon over your content. Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos apologized for the remote deletion of the ebooks after criticism began to pour in about the Kindle's use of proprietary software and Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). While we appreciate and welcome his apology, Amazon's ebooks continue to remain encrusted with DRM. As Peter Brown put it, "Unfortunately this matter requires more than just changing internal policy. The real issue here is Amazon's use of DRM and proprietary software. They have unacceptable power over users, and actual respect necessitates more than an apology -- it requires abandoning DRM and releasing the Kindle's software as free software." While this apology is appreciated very much, Amazon still has unacceptable control over the user. If Amazon wishes to take that step to remove DRM from its ebooks, we would be more than happy to help with this transition.