Is Big Brother on Your iPod?
There is no more important cause for electronic freedoms and privacy than the call for action to stop digital rights management (DRM) from crippling our digital future. This is what I read on the Defective By Design website this weekend. I was browsing the site to learn more about the flashmob campaign against iPods.
The stated goal of this particular protest is to warn customers of the dangers of DRM within the iPod and iTunes, and to eliminate DRM in general. They have a problem with DRM because they feel that inclusion of DRM in products sold by Apple and other companies is inspired by greed and the desire to control us. To accomplish their goals, companies want to monitor, report, and regulate your every interaction with your computer and electronics.
They want to monitor and report on my every interaction? I had no clue. I thought the iPod was designed for entertainment. I didn’t realize it was a monitoring device.
If you’ve never seen a Defective By Design protest, check the video from their Chicago demonstration here. When they protest, they go to sites wearing yellow hazmat (hazardous materials) suits and displaying protest signs. They talk to anybody who will listen about the dangers of DRM.
This group, from the Free Software Foundation, is concerned about the choices DRM is taking away from consumers. Darcy Richardson and others have noted the pressure on Apple from other countries to loosen restrictions on iTunes. They want DRM policies changed so consumers can play music on any MP3 player. Freedom from Software would rather have it elminated altogether.
I don’t have a real problem with Apple’s policies on the iPod. It does what it feels it has to do to stay on top, and consumers know what they are getting into when they buy an iPod. They have other choices, but overwhelmingly iPod is the MP3 they choose.
Music lovers have the freedom to burn their iTunes purchases to a disk. From there they are free to do what they want with it, including playing that music on another type of MP3 player. This involves extra steps, but it’s not all that difficult.
Of course, there are several other choices. Though purchasing online is convenient, nobody is forcing music lovers to do this. Download purchases are a convenience, not a basic constitutional right. Consumers can buy a CD online or from a brick-and-mortar store. It takes a little more effort, and they won’t get the music quite so instantly, but anybody concerned about DRM has this right.
There is also competition. Though iPod leads the pack by a wide margin, there are plenty of other options. In fact, many individuals own more than one iPod. If iPod/iTunes presents a problem, they can choose to purchase an iPod and a different MP3 player.
iTunes made it easy to own music almost instantly. For those who wanted to download but disliked the thought of not paying royalties, iTunes gave them a good option. Three years and a billion downloads later, it seems that Apple made a decision that benefitted a lot of people.
There are many arguments for and against DRM. The Free Software Foundation, however, appears so vehemently against it that I wonder what’s really going on. With all the true digital privacy rights that are invaded every day, the claim that this is the most important issue in that area seems a bit excessive.
I’m one of those people who love to own CDs. It’s not because of DRM, but more because of things like sound quality. Habit also plays a role. I was buying CDs long before there were download options. (I even admit to remembering when CDs were new.)
For my purposes, DRM policies are loose enough. For those who find them too restrictive, it might be a good idea to buy CDs. If it didn’t work for the majority of people and they stopped purchasing online downloads, the industry would change.
If I was worried about privacy and being monitored, I wouldn’t connect to the internet at all. Spyware is a much bigger threat to privacy than iTunes. There are also phishing and other identity stealers to be concerned with. If you’re on the internet at all (and obviously the Free Software Foundation is) you should be more worried about your moves being watched and reported while surfing than on iTunes.
I can’t seem to find any news about how the protests went. Even the Defective By Design website is quiet on this. They show a couple of videos, but at the time I am writing this there are no written reports. Since they aren’t teling and the media is overall pretty quiet about it, I have to think that it didn’t amount to much.
Would it change your mind if somebody approached you at an Apple Store to tell you about the dangers of iPods and iTunes? Do you have any concerns that Big Brother is lurking in your music? I’d love to hear from you.
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Comments
You sure do talk a lot.
Responding to your three points:
1) Nazis still exist, but they are marginalized and no longer a military threat. Any trouble they start is dealt with at the police level.
2) No, only Hiroshima and Nagasaki were “vaporized,” if the term is understood to mean “nuked.” Dresden, Tokyo, and other cities were only hit by conventional bombs.
3) I can’t find any point where I accused anyone of comparing America to Nazi Germany.
And the rest:
-I didn’t say I was for DRM. I said that if you don’t like it, don’t buy it and let others decide for themselves. Beeb and others actually want the government to step in and force companies to open their DRM. If you’re going to violate the property rights of a corporation for the sake of “the public good,” don’t be surprised when right-wingers like myself accuse you of being a socialist in sheep’s clothes.
-I haven’t argued that DRM “helps artists.” I don’t care about the artists. I care about the property rights of the corporations.
-I haven’t heard that the RIAA is trying to prevent incidental copies. They absolutely have the right to do so via DRM, but I don’t think they should actually change the law.
-The right to life applies to non-Americans, but not to enemy combatants. They can be tortured if it will help intelligence-gathering. And yes, this right is more important than derivative rights, because it makes them possible. If protecting derivative rights works against protecting one’s right to life, there’s a conflict. I choose to prioritize protecting the more fundamental one; liberals choose to prioritize protecting the derivative ones.
-I’m surprised you knew about the right to property and its relation to the DoI - most people don’t know that. You’re right that I believe it is a fundamental right; the four fundamental rights are life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.
-Don’t make assumptions about me. I stressed fiscal conservative for a reason: I’m an atheist with no desire at all to promote religion using government or unnecessarily control everyone’s personal lives. So yes, I’m for legalizing drugs - for adults. As for those who sell drugs to kids, they deserve execution.
-You can’t compare the war on drugs to the war on piracy. Adults using drugs doesn’t hurt anyone; stealing intellectual property emphatically does hurt people, so legalizing it is wrong-headed. The fact that both are uncontrollable black markets doesn’t matter; child pornography is also an uncontrollable black market, but I seriously doubt you’d suggest we legalize that, too.
-The open source movement might actually interest me were it not dominated by anti-corporate, anti-IP, privacy-paranoid, pro-nambla liberal wackos.
Oskar, Oskar, Oskar… Time to take a pill and lie down pet… This is neither the time nor the place for a discussion on the death penalty, the use of torture, or right to life… On the planet I am on, this thread is about DRM…
well maybe I should go into a little more detail quickly before I go off and actually do something with my day (night, whatever). I mispoke earlier when I brought up the war on drugs angle.
I meant to say that at least I’m being honest about it, unlike most people who us medicinal marijuana as an in to slowly work their way into legitimacy.
And I’m certainly not saying that piracy should be legal, it should simply be out flanked by legal means of getting access, ala pandora.
Pandora.com, if you haven’t heard of it before, is a website where you can listen to streaming music, not entirely of your choosing but not entirely random either. I love it. I’ll pop in some of my favourite artists to create a playlist and they’ll play me other stuff that is musically similar, which I can then give a thumbs up or down (just because I like meatloaf doesn’t mean I like other people who sound the same, but if you like metallica, then chances are you’ll like Megadeth as well, and if not you can tell them so and it will revise the damn thing).
How I referred to property rights is in the consumers eyes, in that I should not have to pay for a movie, book or song over again unless it is to pay for new costs upon on the corporation (like how they’re switching all the bond movies over to high def on all them power macs; I tend to congregate at digg a fair bit).
If I were to walk into a store and steal a physical object, that’s stealing as now the people depending on that sale (the store clerk, store owner, courier, factory worker, artists) would all be getting their money based on the bottom line of the business model, while downloading a show I would never have watched and may now buy at some point in the future when it makes sense as a consumer, to me, that’s not stealing that’s giving them a future customer and a fan.
I will refuse to purchase a DVD that is marked up to 60 dollars or up to double that when I know that I’ll be buying it again when a high def version is released. I’m with holding my money, performing a form of civil disobedience that isn’t hurting anyone, the very idea that I am stealing is subject to debate, but there are extremist laws being contemplated (such as the induce act, which would close the noose around DRM, forcing people to either obey the rules and keep paying over and over in order to enjoy their media on different mediums or become pirates who rip their dvd’s, which is already on shaky legal ground http://www.teamcombooks.com/mp3handbook/5.htm) and without a second party (cause to be honest, that’s what you guys really need) whoever shows up wins, which is democratic in name only.
You can’t defeat an idea by invading it
sydneystephan,
Wow, did you read my post? A large portion of it was dedicated to discussing DRM. And below, yet more discussion about it. You’re being a bit anal.
Chicken,
How I referred to property rights is in the consumers eyes,
You are redefining property rights. You can’t force a corporation to give you something for free; it is their intellectual property, and as such they can charge $0 or $1,000,000 for a DVD if they wanted to. You, in turn, have the freedom to buy it or not. That’s what the right to property means.
...while downloading a show I would never have watched and may now buy at some point in the future when it makes sense as a consumer, to me, that’s not stealing that’s giving them a future customer and a fan.
How would you like it if someone stole your car and left a note saying that he “may” compensate you “at some point in the future”? This isn’t the way contracts work. If you want to see their movie or listen to their music, you have to pay them, and do it now.
I’m with holding my money, performing a form of civil disobedience that isn’t hurting anyone,
Nice rationalization, but you are absolutely hurting them: you are robbing their intellectual property without the required compensation. Piracy is gross disrespect for other peoples’ property, plain and simple.
I just want to add one more thing to what I said here:
If you want to see their movie or listen to their music, you have to pay them, and do it now.
Please don’t suggest that you’ve already paid for it. When you bought the DVD for the movie Finding Nemo, you did not buy ownership rights to every version of that movie to come in the future, such as the HD edition. You have a specific contract: The right to watch that movie on that DVD disc. You can’t redefine the terms of the contract later on to justify pirating the HD version. It doesn’t work that way.
DRM is essential, and justified. You might not like it, but then this is not about you…
Really? ‘Cause I thought you were the one arguing that “everything Apple is doing is about customer satisfaction.”
This is just another example of you arguing two completely opposite points with the singular goal of defending anything and everything Apple does.
Fairplay is tight, and needs to be.
Fairplay isn’t tight at all. Music pirates can defeat it easily. However, the digital music store competition can’t. And that’s really what Fairplay is all about, keeping the competition at bay.
But music will never be DRM free. And why should it? You are asking the composers and musicians to give you the keys to their houses.
What a stupid analogy. First of all, DRM isn’t about protecting artists. The music labels go out of their way, DRM or not, to shaft artists every chance they can (as in my example above of how they shaft them out of royalties when they categorize downloads as “sales"). Defending Fairplay means defending the industry stanglehold on copyrighted music. And that stranglehold does more to harm artists and their pocketbooks than any form of piracy ever has.
Second, the relatively few artists enriched by the labels are STILL enriched. And those who are not, still aren’t. File sharing has had virtually no impact on that at all and no one has ever provided any real evidence that it has.
you also have the right to back up your media, which would go back to an early case involving faulty floppy discs. This way if your disc were to scratch, you wouldn’t have to go out and buy a new one. which would be a redundant sale.
Here’s an example: I walk in to 7/11 and buy a slurpee. Some other guy also buys a slurpee. he goes outside and drops his cup, breaking it into pieces. While waiting at the counter this guy tries to convince the clerk to let him get a new slurpee without having to pay again. Clerk apologizes and tells him he can’t do that. The guy starts to walk away but before leaving sees me accidentally drop my slurpee across the counter, leaving the cup intact. He lets me refill the cup, no additional charge.
By the end of the year I’ll have bought the star wars trilogy three times for sixty bucks a pop. I don’t have a problem with this, as now I’ll be able to replace my aging VHS copies with something that should last me well into the future.
Dismissing the argument that I may or may not buy it in the future, please feel free to throw down the gauntlet on
A) Downloading a television show via p2p
vs.
B) Recording it on a VCR
Besides the obviousness of the ad based system, which is doomed to failure in it’s current incarnation with the ability of modern DVR’s to edit out commercials anyways, the move needs to be made to on demand video. I contend that downloading a tv show is an act of civil disobedience and a victimless crime, unless it is somehow costing them a sale, which is not the case here given that the VCR or DVR is the alternative.
Slowly, companies are doing this and networks like ABC are trying out screening their shows online with ads in between presumably (only US residents can watch). Battlestar Galactica has done similar things in terms of select episodes and features that are normally sold with a dvd like behind the scenes featurettes and the like.
I always felt it was simply a matter of time that I would be able to pick and choose which episode of Just for Laughs I would like to see. After years and years of watching that show, I have yet to see Norm Macdonald do his routine. I truly feel that once they manage to figure out how to make money off of it, they’ll be rolling in the dough. iTunes is there I suppose, but like you said, the DRM is a bitch, and besides it appears that they don’t offer it in canada itunes music store as of yet so I have no legal option beyond downloading or watching on tv, and I really don’t think it makes a difference
And just to say again, I never said that you shouldn’t have to pay again to buy a new version of the same movie. By now you should know better, and let the buyer beware. I even mentioned the Bond films being remastered as a legitimate cause for releasing a new version and charging again.
To be honest I think that the subscription model would be best for digital video versions of tv shows, as it would allow you to watch it and would give companies an excuse for loading i with DRM, which is not to compete with DVD sales, setting up a new and seperate market where you are essentially renting the right to watch, like Napster. And because it’s competing with television which is funded through ads that may or may not be being watched, you could offer a double tier service where you either have ads or pay more to get rid of the ads.
The problem with this is that since ISP’s own the cable companies (or vice versa) most of the time, they wouldn’t like the idea of competing with themselves, which is where that whole Net Neutrality thing would come into play, although I would like to see the large conglomerates of content providers (NBC Universal, Viacom, CHUM, Global, Disney) offer these services themselves, which is happening, and thus we can avoid net neutrality becoming too much of an issue at least at this point. It’s a Mexican standoff of sorts between those guys and the ISP’s. Anyways, I’m done
A) Downloading a television show via p2p vs. B) Recording it on a VCR
Recording a show with a VCR for personal use is fine, because you’ve already paid for it (with your service fees to the local cable company and your exposure to their ads). Distributing via p2p neither compensates the content provider nor abides by copyright law.
I contend that downloading a tv show is an act of civil disobedience and a victimless crime, unless it is somehow costing them a sale, which is not the case here given that the VCR or DVR is the alternative.
And I contend that you do not know what civil disobedience means. It means that you commit a crime out in the open, letting the authorities know exactly what you’re doing, in order to provide a catalyst for political change. Rosa Parks was engaging in civil disobedience; you, sir, are no Rosa Parks. You’re simply pirating media because you don’t want to spend your money.
And just to say again, I never said that you shouldn’t have to pay again to buy a new version of the same movie. By now you should know better, and let the buyer beware.
You have however condoned piracy when you don’t perceive it to be “hurting” the industry. And I say again, this standard is completely subjective and flies in the face of copyright law. It doesn’t matter if you can record the latest episode of Desperate Housewives with your VCR; it doesn’t justify violating the law to get it from a p2p network.
The system is the problem. I know what civil disobedience means, and I figured by posting what I’m doing on an open forum was a way of informing the populace f what it is I’m doing, and it does of course include spending money. I would hardly compare myself to someone as selfless as Rosa Parks or Mahatma Ghandi, I’m simply a guy going out of my way to consume content, refusing to pay for the bare bones Sin City but pinching pennies to pick up the extra special collector’s edition with the included graphic novel. What I’m doing is rather selfish and unimportant in the current scheme of things, although there is a noble idea behind it, that being a library of free content not unlike the libraries of the past, where one could check out books and all of this, except the content is more readily available to anyone with an internet connection without having to leave your home until the feds bust down the door. Ahem.
And again the system is the problem. Show me the anti-copyright ad saying that the rating system includes me, and as such my not watching somehow costs them money. In the meantime, the shows that I watch or download get cancelled regardless (Action, Dead Like Me, etc.) and other shows have yet to see the light of day on dvd, as there’s no apparent market for it (Mad About You, Ed, hell try asking for anything made before 1990 next time your at blockbuster).
The networks are beginning to move towards digital distribution, but so far only in the states. When I can simply visit a website for a streaming feed of the show online with commercials added, you better believe I’ll be there.
The reason why they’ve been reluctant (this they I speak of is the various content providers) is because of both the costs of putting it out there and alsot the fact that if no one views it, then their ad scheme won’t work yet they’ll still have to pay for the servers and bandwidth. Meanwhile it might be cutting into their other business without boosting it at all, so it is a dicey proposition to base a business plan (hence the lack of back issues available at marvel.com anymore, theoretically allowing someone to get up to date on the storyline and buy the new issue, but theoretically cutting into trade paperback sales at the same time). This is why they priced music singles at 6-8 dollars in the 90’s, to make albums the better deal.
And just because I download a show doesn’t mean I won’t watch it again when it’s on tv or vice versa. With pay channels there are no commercials to speak of and so the content provider has already been payed for the use of their media regardless of how few people watch it, so again I don’t figure it matters much anyways. Believe me whenever I have cash in my pocket it’s likely to go towards some sort of disc, be it a tv show, movie or video game along with the occasional album or book. That has a lot to do with the fact that I have little to spend my money on along with the fact that I have little money to spend, but it’s always been the case that my money goes to some content creating company, which won’t change anytime soon.
I’ll end with saying that there is no legal way of viewing old episodes of the desperate housewives in Canada online, even if I wanted to (which I don’t, but maybe if it were conveniently put together, I’d give the show a try). iTunes doesn’t offer tv shows on their Canada store, and ABC only offers it’s shows for American viewers on their website. So if I were interested in watching desperate housewives, I’d have to either buy the season set on a gamble that it’s the kind of show I would enjoy, con a friend into letting me borrow their copy (if I knew a friend who liked that show) or either rent it from blockbuster (which would benefit blockbuster, not ABC) or try my hand at downloading it. Of course there’s also the option of trying to watch it from this moment on, but believe me, that is just an impossibility with television more often than not. After trying a few times to get into Farscape when it originally aired, it wasn’t until they went back and started from the beginning that I was able to get whole hearedly hooked.
If I could watch it online from the beginning with ads for free, I would definitely do this and I’d use this medium to send my friends on to check out similar shows. I became hooked on Penn and Teller’s Bullshit recently because of being turned onto it through shoutcast tv by a friend, and if they were to ever air that show here, I would definitely watch it. There’s money to be made in porting their business model over to the on demand realm of digital distribution, and with the government push to digital broadcasting, one would figure that this sort of thing will be a reality once the dust settles.
The biggest complaint I hear from people with hundreds of channels is that there’s nothing on. This is something that must be remedied, or people might start reading again.
Oh and just to throw it out there, one of the ways that Ghandi practised non-violent civil disobedience was by spending a certain amount of time each day spinning thread, saying how if everyone were to spin their own thread they could cut demand for cheap imported British cotton thread by making their own.
This is something I learned through pirating audiobook lectures and historical documentaries, which were a hell of a lot more informative than my university professor in the first year history course I dropped out of. Then again, I’ve always had trouble jumping through hoops as the school system would have me do. Perhaps if they forced students to take a proactive role in their education (something that is difficult to do I’m sure, given my stubbornness throughout adolescence to relearn everything year after year), but whichever.
Back to DRM, though...Maybe I’m wrong, but I think the most likely way to see an end to DRM is to stop purchasing, yet even people who don’t like it use it. The convenience of downloading music seems to outweigh DRM issues.
So here’s the question: does DRM affect your buying habits?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think the most likely way to see an end to DRM is to stop purchasing, yet even people who don’t like it use it.
That’s because consumers have only the choice between DRM or no downloadable music at all. That’s not really a choice. And the labels aren’t exactly a benevolent oligopoly either. They abuse it regularly. The most effective solution isn’t a boycott; it’s most likely legislative action.
Not too long ago there was no downloadable music. Downloading music is a convenience, not a necessity. Those who download the most would, in fact, have the least to lose because they already have their iPods full.
You still don’t have to leave home to purchase music. You just can’t get it as immediately if you have to order online. And yes, you are risking getting tracks you don’t like on a full album. Then again, you might be exposed to music you love that you wouldn’t have known existed.
Personally, my family has several MP3, not all iPods. (Sometimes it’s hard to resist a good MP3 sale!) We rarely download. We use MP3 for convenience when traveling. Not downloading hasn’t harmed our life at all. To download or not is a choice.
If I was really against DRM, I wouldn’t download. People value convenience more than they hate DRM, so DRM remains.
Downloading music is a convenience, not a necessity.
It’s one thing to put up with an otherwise malodorous tool because you have no choice. It’s quite another to happily defend it, even though it’s a tool used to rip off consumers and artists.
One could defend almost ANY monopolistic, anti-competitive practices with precisely the same specious and pro-oligopoly arguments you are providing.
In fact, by all of this rationale enthusiastically provided on behalf of the labels and Apple, Microsoft is not only NOT abusing its monopoly power, they are more than justified in doing whatever is necessary to defend that monopoly power. After all, not so long ago computers were a convenience, not a necessity, and to buy one with Windows is certainly still a choice.
And since the mere existence of the choice NOT to buy a product means that a company can do what it wants (with Janet happily defending it every step of the way), then there can literally be no such thing as abuse of monopoly power.