Defective by Design

We are starting to hear more and more doubts expressed that DRM can be a viable business model for the media and technology companies. The "stay the course" voices sound shaky. The problem? It seems that we - their users and customers - don't like DRM, and we won't accept it. We refuse to purchase from them, some circumvent the restrictions and most just go elsewhere. Eric Pickard is the director of advertising strategy and emerging media planning at Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, and his message to the Big Media companies is simple: The people are in control...

Last week Billboard (the music industry publication) ran a great article about DRM and the digital music market. The article was picked up by Reuters and ran in many other publications. An article like this would have been almost unthinkable in a recording industry publication just a few months ago!

What's more, opponents insist that DRM, in fact, does nothing to protect music. Virtually every form of DRM has been hacked, including Apple's FairPlay and Microsoft's WMA encryption of tethered subscription files. Not all digital music consumers are aware of these workarounds, but tend to discover them the minute they find they can't play their music on their device of choice.

As we mop up after all the action and news related to October 3rd - Day Against DRM, we want to draw attention to a couple of items:

FreeCulture.org just announced the winners of the Down With DRM Video Contest.
Digg the DRM Video Contest Winners

Electronic Frontier Foundation's report "Who Killed the TiVoToGo?" which details how Big Media and Cable companies forced TiVo to remove the TiVo To Go service from the new TiVo Series 3 HD.
Digg DRM killed the TiVoToGo!

October 3rd, Day Against DRM was a huge success - thank you to the thousands of people who took part in actions around the globe, both big and small, to spread the word about the dangers of DRM. Thousands of emails were sent from the DefectiveByDesign site to friends and relatives warning them about DRM. We distributed one hundred and fifty thousand stickers, and you used them in more than two hundred organized meet-ups to get the message out. The reports from the protests outside the flagship Apple stores in London and New York showed people were having a lot of fun. Some of you got dressed up in Hazmat suits and educated shoppers and commuters, others blogged about anti-DRM activities, many submitted amazing photos. In Paris StopDRM.info activists took it to another level and handed themselves in to police for breaking French DRM laws. Our friends at Free Culture ran a video competition that resulted in some truly wonderful submissions, and more than 80,000 people have viewed the winning submissions!

France's StopDRM had a great action last week. A few members circumvented the DRM on songs purchased from iTunes Music Store and a DVD and then they turned themselves in to Paris Police. Read the full article on Cnet.

[img_assist|nid=875|title=DBD US Member Map|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=400|height=196]
Anselm Hook, a friend of DBD, took some time to make this better map of us members. We are still having some difficulty mapping members outside of the USA because we didn;t always capture your Country or City.

We have been getting some great reports in and photos too.
be sure to upload pictures of your actions, or send them to us.

Here are a few good ones:

Dreamhost.com contacted us earlier today to let us know that they support the work of DefectiveByDesign.org. Josh from DreamHost went on to tell us they are announcing a new service today, Files Forever. Really cool stuff!

"If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed" - Disney Executive.

Defeating DRM is all about awareness. The direct actions that we take are all about this. On October 3rd we launched a world wide day of awareness about DRM, and now everyday is a Day Against DRM. Let the people around you know that DRM is bad for our culture and society. Let's create space for the debate. Do we want handcuffs and locks on art and knowledge?

As our friends at Disney recognize, if we have this debate, we will have won.

As part of the Free Culture video contest, a number of folks have submitted fantastic videos that highlight the problems with DRM. These videos are a great way to spread the word.
Digg This Story!

Here are the winners.

[img_assist|nid=849|title=DRM make me sad|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=370|height=400]
Read Gareth Bowker's full blog from the anti-DRM rally in London on Saturday.

"Yesterday’s Defective by Design awareness campaign in London went very well – far better than I could have hoped. In the end, we had over 20 people helping to hand out over 3,200 leaflets in about 2h30.

...we decided to send a couple of people into the store to leaflet as many people as they could manage before getting thrown out. Kudos has to go to MJ for the ballsy “replace the leaflets in Apple’s leaflet holders with DbD leaflets” which was pretty successful. After they got ejected, we set off, and almost immediately got stopped by a Policeman. The conversation went something like this:

[img_assist|nid=845|title=Apple Store 5th Ave|desc=photo credit http://diabloadvocati.deviantart.com/gallery/|link=none|align=right|width=265|height=400]Members of FreeCulture.org, New Yorkers for Fare Use and DefectiveByDesign all turned out for today's precursor to October 3rd.

WE talked to shoppers and passersbuy distributing stickers and leaflets about the dangers of DRM. Apple security didn't seem too happy with us, but the people we talked to were all interested and were pretty pissed to learn about the privacy violations and use restrictions of DRM schemes that Big Media are pushing.

With 100,000 DRM warning labels now distributed, it's time to start the action. Join one. Start one.

Join us in New York and London.

On Saturday, September 30th, hazmat suited DefectiveByDesign members will gather at the flagship Apple stores in New York and London, These high profile events will kick-off awareness for "Oct 3rd, Day Against DRM"

We are totally out of stickers for October 3rd and will let you know when we can fullful additional requests

Announce a meet-up and get your friends together with others in your area, We've distributed stickers to over 300 locations around globe and we will try to connect folks via event on the website in the coming days, so keep checking back. You can also download a PDF template to print your own stickers

TAKE ACTION

"If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed" - Disney Executive.

Defeating DRM is all about awareness. The direct actions that we have taken are all about this. Whether it means protesting outside Apple Stores in Hazmat suits or getting HUGE press coverage for announcing the Bono petition (sign it now). Action gets attention, and creates space for debate. And as our friends at Disney recognize, if there is a debate, we will have won.

There is an interesting thread on Slashdot about DRM and the "economics" around creativity and media. There have been many thoughtful and interesting comments to the original post "A Working Economy Without DRM?" which asks the question "How do you create a market for a product, and make money of a product that has a huge initial creative investment, but then no manufacturing cost, and is in infinite supply?"

[img_assist|nid=537|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=240|height=228]More than one thousand technologists in San Francisco wore DefectiveByDesign stickers proclaming their stance against DRM - that for free software developers DRM represents an attack on Freedom #1, the freedom to modify the code.

David Sugar reports from the conference: "Many people were walking around with DefectiveByDesign stickers.... I love this particular campaign. In fact, I believe it is one of the best grass-roots activist efforts the FSF has undertaken in recent years."

One DefectiveByDesign member phoned up Susan Peacock, Vice President of the Canadian Motion Picture Distribution Association and spoke with her for an hour. She was completely open to having a real, respectful conversation about the dangers of DRM. Give her a call and have a chat.

The MPAA represents the major movie houses, and their influence plays a leading role in pushing DRM into our technology. The MPAA were the lead lobbyists for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that now makes it a crime to circumvent DRM technology.

They are lobbying right now for legislation to mandate a "Broadcast Flag" inside digital TV signals that can prevent recording, and for legislation mandating the closing of the "Analog Hole" requiring all devices to handle encrypted DRM signals. These laws will turn our homes into DRM prisons and hand unprecedented power to Hollywood.

Join us in making calls on Friday!

Join NOW to participate in this action:

We've begun work on the Short Guide to Living a DRM-Free Existence. It includes online music stores, producers of eBooks, and portable music players that respect the rights of the user. They give you the freedom to enjoy the media you own on the devices you own, without worrying about whether the latest album you bought will be compliant with a particular flavor of Digital Restrictions Management.

So check out the guide now, and let us know if you have other resources you would like to add.

Thanks to the diligent work of the DRM Elimination Crew, we now have a selection of buttons for use on blogs and other websites. Code snippets for posting these buttons are available. Let the world know you support DefectiveByDesign.org in putting a stop to Digital Restrictions Management.

Get your button now!

Bruce Byfield at Linux Journal writes "Starting from scratch, in less than three months, the [DefectiveByDesign] campaign has grown to 7000 members. This number is impressive, especially since the campaign introduces a degree of activism previously unknown in the free and open source software communities."

Bruce gives us his Five minute guide to opposing DRM.

Ken Fischer, over at Ars Technica, has a great breakdown of a Q and A session at Siggraph that got a little heated. Apparently Mitch Singer, executive director of the digital policy group at Sony, had to endure some awkward questions about DRM. Ars Technica has that story.

Grant Robertson of DigitalMusicWeblog at Weblogs, Inc. recently asked us a few questions about the campaign, our organization and, of course, DRM and Digital Music.

UPDATE:
You can digg this interview:

If you couldn't make it to the conference call with Ray Beckerman, a lawyer representing clients in cases against the RIAA, you can listen or download the audio from Archive.org

Transcript:

Gregory Heller DefectiveByDesign Campaign Manager:
So without further ado I turn it over to Peter Brown the Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation

Peter Brown:

Thanks, Gregory. And welcome, everybody.

If you couldn't make it to the conference call with Ray Beckerman, a lawyer representing clients in cases against the RIAA, you can listen or download the audio from Archive.org

Here is a transcript

Now Take Action!

Make a donation to support Ray's clients in these important legal cases.

Then sign the Bono petition