Blogs

Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theater

Boston's Louis CK has a new show on his website, but he's doing things a little differently with this one. To quote his site: "No DRM, no regional restrictions, no crap. You can download this file, play it as much as you like, burn it to a DVD, whatever."

This is an adult show with adult themes. Not for children. 18+

https://buy.louisck.net/purchase -- $5 for the show. 1.2Gb download with accompanying Ogg Theora stream available.

Cyber Monday Shopping Guide

Thinking of doing some holiday shopping? We hope that when purchasing for loved ones and friends that you'll consider avoiding companies and products designed to restrict freedom and consider supporting companies and organizations that defend freedom.

To help you make informed shopping decision and to avoid products that are defective by design, we've put together a short 2011 Holiday Buying Guide. We will be updating the guide throughout the holiday season, so please keep coming back for new tips and suggestions.

Amazon Kindle extinguishes the fire of learning

Amazon came out with their newest line of Kindle ebook readers today, including the appropriately named "Kindle Fire".

To quote their TV commercial: "The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all."

This device does not kindle that fire -- it extinguishes it, with more of the same digital restrictions.

Let's look at the facts:

Keep the pressure on Barnes and Noble

A few weeks ago, we asked you to reach out to Barnes & Noble about their Nook eBook reader. Many of you did, and while Barnes & Noble have yet to formally respond, we can continue to put pressure on them.

The current news is that Amazon plans to launch a color Android device, much like the Nook color. If we continue to put pressure on B&N, we can use this increased pressure from Amazon as a reason to make the Nook a device for everyone, not just large book publishers.

Read more, including a selection of your quotes to Barnes and Noble

Let Barnes and Noble know the Nook is defective by design

American book retailer Barnes & Noble have launched the third model of their Nook ebook reader. We've previously written about the Nook, but until recently the Nook did not get much attention due to the limited options available.

Things have changed and now the Nook represents a real threat to users because of its invasive DRM, close relationship with DRM champions Adobe, and because of its use of the Android operating system -- which might lead many to think the Nook is not defective by design.

Spotify is Defective by Design

Topic: 

The music streaming service Spotify uses Digital Restrictions Management (DRM); push back by saying NO to Spotify's invitations.

After being available in Europe for some time, Spotify has launched in the United States with a publicity campaign inviting people to use the service.

Our conclusion: Spotify is using DRM to prevent things legally permitted even by overly strict US copyright law, making Spotify defective by design.

Help warn people about YouTube Rentals

If you've logged into YouTube recently, you've probably noticed that they're pushing their Rental service pretty hard. YouTube Rentals brings full-length independent movies to YouTube, at a price -- they use Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to severely limit how the videos can be used. Many devices, including certain Android phones, are unable to access them at all.

This about-face goes against exactly what made YouTube useful in the first place -- the unencumbered sharing of video.

Interview with Marcos Marado on the Day Against DRM

The DRM-PT and Associação Nacional para o Software Livre (an associate of Free Software Foundation Europe) groups recently celebrated the Day Against DRM together. They hosted a radio show, and then a free movie event followed by a presentation on DRM. The next day, at Portugal's largest book fair, they distributed flyers and started a lively debate on the subject at the presentation of a pro-DRM ebook retailer. We interviewed Marcos Marado, the creator of DRM-PT, about the recent Day Against DRM events.

Update: Over 200 bricks ordered for Nintendo, we reached our goal!

UPDATE: We surpassed our goal of 200 bricks! But, if you would still like to place an order, it is not too late. So, order your brick now.

So far, Defective by Design supporters have ordered 70 bricks 150 over 200 bricks to send to Nintendo's President and COO, Reggie Fils-Aime.

Here are some quick and easy ways you can help!

Mura Nintendo prima che murino te.

Mura Nintendo prima che murino te.

Il Nintendo 3DS ha una licenza di utilizzo che non dovrebbe essere accettata. Infatti le condizioni sono cosi' incredibili che ne abbiamo incluso un riassunto piu' dettagliato in una pagina a parte. Per far rispettare la licenza d'uso, Nintendo utilizza la Gestione delle Restrizioni Digitali (DRM). La combinazione di restrizioni tecnologiche e legali rende il Nintendo 3DS dubbio, subdolo e difettoso.

Wednesday May 4th: Day Against DRM just two days away (Italian)

Il 2011 e' stato un brutto anno per il DRM. Sony sta usando azioni legali per molestare e intimidire individui che modificano le loro PS3. Le librerie stanno per essere rimpiazzate da compagnie come Amazon e Apple che cercano di controllare l'accesso ai libri e monitorare chi legge cosa e dove. Abbiamo bisogno di inviare un messaggio chiaro: No al DRM!

We need to keep the pressure on Sony

We asked you to email Sony CEO Howard Stringer during our last call to action and Sony responded by shutting off his email address. Many of you then sent emails to the next email address we posted, Nicole Seligman, Sony Executive VP and General Counsel. Your action was effective — it was an important part of the overall public pressure put on Sony to back off.

EA uses DRM to punish forum behavior

Just because you buy a DRM-restricted game doesn't mean you can play it. An unfortunate forum comment temporarily left a gamer unable to play a single-player game purchased through the EA Store. Bioware forum poster Arno recently had his EA account suspended for 72 hours and then found he could not activate his previously preordered and purchased copy of Dragon Age II.

Tell Sony to stop harassing hackers

This month we're focusing our attention on Sony. Sony has been in the news a lot recently: suing developers for figuring out how to run free software on their PlayStation 3 consoles.

Both George Hotz (geohot) and more recently, Graf Chokolo — operator of the PS3 Hypervisor Reverse Engineering blog have been harrassed by Sony, with Graf Chokolo having his home raided on Feb 23rd.

As TorrentFreak reported earlier today:

The most important work for freedom that this culture has seen in generations

"The Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman's work represents the most important work for freedom that this culture, the American culture, has seen in many many generations because it takes the ideas of freedom and it removes it from the ivory tower, and it removes it from lawyers, and places it in a community—a technology community—that is one of the most important communities defining the contours of freedom that most people in our culture and increasingly around the world will know."

Kettling Wikileaks

This article provides an important back story to our DRM campaign. Here at DefectiveByDesign we try to give our readers the bigger picture of how DRM is a threat to society's freedom: it's more than just about access to music and movies.

("Kettling" refers to the police tactic of surrounding a large group of protestors in the middle of a protest and keeping them under siege for hours.)

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - blogs