Talkback: Free Software Foundation's DRM dogma

I think your going a bit too far with your criticism of the FSF's stand on DRM. It's totally in line with their "programmers should be free to program" stand.

The main problem with DRM in relation to the GPL is that it can basically make the GPL ineffective. With DRM a vendor could use GPL code to make a product, but have the system protected by DRM in a way that a person that has a right under the GPL modify the code and stopped from loading the updated version with their features/fixes on the device. Effectively stealing from the GPL authors to make a closed source product because of DRM.

As far as DRM in playing media, there is a belief that if DRM becomes ubiquitous it will be bad for society by allowing a company or small group of companies to lock up the culture in such a way as everything you do with media is effectively taxed. This would result in a situation that if you are not wealthy you wouldn't be able to be part of society because with ubiquitous DRM there will be no lending of books/media or selling of old copies.

Generally speaking society is pretty short sighted, also the consumer choice is strictly limited because copyright owners have control who and how their content is distributed, so the offerings of DRMed and non-DRMed content are not the same. So saying let the consumers decided is not really fair since they have little choice about acquiring "album a" by “main stream� band online in a non-encumbered format legally.

The FSF/Richard Stallman has written an essay where DRM may lead society and the FSF is trying to fight against it. You can read where we may very well end up with DRM in the "Right to Read" article http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

It may very will be that they are right in that DRM is bad for society as they were about Free software being good for society.

The fundamental point Mr. McAllister fails to understand is the FSF has always represented the most distilled concept for free software and open source. He cites that Richard Stallman is responsible for popularizing and selling free software to a variety of individuals, which is patently not the case. Open source advocates such as Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens are the real landmarks in making the business case palatable for others.

DRM is inherently in opposition to what the entire intent of the FSF's original between-the-lines goals. It was created as a rejection of the increasingly proprietary software market. The rise of DRM music distribution is similar both in structure and nature. To expect the FSF to not stand up is like expecting Greenpeace to not be involved in protesting clearcutting.

While the rhetoric is grandiose, anti-DRM advocates have a point. Only recently I ventured from my linux partition to try out iTunes, a track I had heard was only available there. The entire process was very slick, but I found I could not play the song under a non-iTunes player in Windows, or under any popular player in Linux. I accepted that I could not play this song without iTunes, but at least I could play it on iTunes at work, right? Unfortunately I was informed that in order to do so I would have to purchase the song again.

DRM is not about new enabling features. If the scenario I described doesn't sound like digital restriction of content I legitimately purchased, then I recommend you join the FSF in learning what mainstream society thinks.

This article is so filled with analogies worse than the ones it ridicules as to be fully content free and completely unpersuasive.

For instance:

Peter Brown said, "A media player that restricts what you can play is like a car that won't let you steer" -- a false analogy so patently absurd as to be laughable to a grade-school student.

you say:

No DRM system ever told an artist what notes to play or what lyrics were OK to sing. But the FSF seems intent on doing just that.

Which is a false analogy so patently absurd as to be laughable to a grade-school student.

Furthermore, no system ever told anybody anything. Its the DRM advocates who tell artists what to play. You know, the people who gave us Milli Vanilli and the Backstreet Boys. I mean, dude, I'm an unpublished songwriter/musician who has turned down deals from the DRM people - they don't give anybody a fair deal on any side - customers, artists, retailers, etc.

You're also wrong in calling the GPL DRM. The GPL is a license agreement. There is no technological enforcement of the agreement. Break it if you want.

Furthermore, it only covers distribution - you can use the software any way you like in the privacy of your own home. The DRM people want to tell you how to use your music in the privacy of your own home.

no, the FSF's stance is quite rational, the institution of DRM is a further step along the path of might-is-right; cultural freedom requires the right for culture to shared and incorporated; a morality based on "intellectual property" as a fundamental right baises the economic advantage way too much towards the publisher and stifles the creative energy that reinterprets ideas and benefits us all. An analogy would be to say that land owners have the right to pollute their land (regardless of the effect on neighbouring land) because it's their property and they own all rights.

I think Stallman acts consistently with the principles of the FSF. The first principles of FSF are the Four Freedoms. DRM simply doesn't further these freedoms, and, in fact impedes them.

Take Tivo for example. Tivo is based on GPL'd Gnu/Linux. Yet, the hardware on which Tivo operates detects other forms of Gnu/Linux and stops them from running, including modified Tivo software. The GPL guarantees you can modify the software and run it as you like. In the Tivo case, the hardware -- an instance of Stallman's "other techonologies" -- implements DRM and circumvents the GPL.

Tivo may do what users want at a reasonable price point. However, the FSF and the GPL are not about market preferences and price points. They are about liberty. If a developer or business doesn't like the _voluntary_ restrictions in GPL 3, she, he or it is free to use another license and other software.

I commend Richard Stallman for what he does intellectually and morally. It is difficult work and often not popular. Whether you or I like it, we are soon hip deep in politics and activism when exercising or defending our freedom. I don't understand why you think it is a bad thing.

The FSF is one of the few organisations that recognizes the fundamental dangers to society and freedom that DRM poses. All people who collaborate with DRM schemes are, IMHO, either ignorant or outright enemies of civilization and mankind. It is a further escalation towards the evil concept of "intellectual property", which the FSF opposes and rightly so.

In that sense, the FSF policy is only consistent with what they've always been doing. And what is also consistent is that ignorant people, or those with a hidden agenda, have always been muttering against the FSF.

Reading such critics makes me very suspicious about their motives.

> When Richard Stallman created the Free Software
> Foundation (FSF) in 1985, it was organized around
> a radical idea: Software should be free, not just
> as in free of charge, but free as in the concept
> of liberty.

When the first signs of DRM appeared many years ago, Richard Stallman proposed a radical idea: Useful and artistic works should be free, not just as in free of charge, but free as in the concept of liberty.

> One of the original tenets of the GPL was that
> users of software should be free, not just to
> run the software and make copies of it, but to
> examine its code and improve on it. Free
> software means, among other things, the freedom
> of programmers to write code.

Indeed. Extend that freedom to any other artistic and useful works, and you have exactly the message of defectivebydesign.org. Free works mean, among other things, the freedom of any user to use, examine, improve, and share it.

Programs should not restrict users' freedom to use, examine, improve and share the program. Works should not restrict their users' freedom to use, examine, improve and share the work.

You're bringing exactly the same flawed argument that is trotted out against free software. "How can you tell me not to write works that restricts other people's freedom?"

No-one is free if other people use their power to effectively restrict freedom -- even if that power is itself mislabelled as a "freedom".

I must agree that this response to the FSF's concern left me feeling a little underwhelmed. The fact is that the motion picture and music recording industries' assault -- rightly or wrongly -- on the free distribution of electronic media has created an environment where every Tom, Dick, and Harry (companies, that is) is coming to table with a DRM strategy. Each of these is all about restricting what one can do with the media they pay for and use. Perhaps it's too far to say your car won't steer... but imagine your car refusing to go down a certain road because you failed to pay your weekly toll. Or you car refused to start because you failed to make a car payment on time -- and this capability already exists and is in use!

I don't want to suggest that commercial interests have no place in the discussion. But I, too, fear that there has been so much emphasis on how to protect corporate profits that there has been a woeful lack of attention to the protections of the consumer. And I truly believe the writer gives consumers WAY too much credit... I can't tell you how many people I've heard swearing at different DRM practices once they realize exactly what they CAN'T do with the media they've paid for.

I agree, in the long term, that once consumers are educated that they will make the right decisions. But there are so many competing approaches for DRM (about as many as have eStores for music or video) that it can be very confusing for most. Personally, I'd be happy to line up with those who wish to tell the corporations where they can stick their current DRM strategies... until something more usable, consumer friendly, and STANDARD is adopted. Right now, it's like we've got 8 different Betamax standards floating around... and we all know how well that led baloon went over in the consumer world.

Your free market argument doesn't hold because the free market economy does not always to the benefit of the consumers. Take price dumping, for example.

Now I do believe that there should be some economic model limiting the redistribution of music -- otherwise artists won't earn the money they deserve. However, the problem with DRM is that it also limits the kinds of player devices you can use. (I admit I haven't checked the facts, but it seems that DRM is NOT based on open standards.) This way, it lets music stores team up with player producers (in the case of Apple, they already are one and the same) to enforce monopolies on users. And monopolies in general are bad even if consumers do support them.

All difficult positions related to change are moral in nature... as in understanding what should be done and then undertaking the task of doing it.
Moral is not a four-letter word.

"Convinced, perhaps, that average consumers are too stupid to know what's good for them, it's embarked on a mission..."

I am surprised at Mr. McAllister's supposition about the FSF's view of the intelligence of the average consumer. The average consumer is in fact too ignorant, not too stupid, to know what's good, or in this case, bad, for them. The FSF is trying to educate the otherwise ignorant, so as to allow them to protect themselves.

Um...

After reading your article, it seems to me that you neither understand the various usage rights issues surrounding DRM nor the FSF's specific position regarding it.

Please do a bit more research and write a follow-up article.

The FSF has been quite consistent about its position regarding user "freedoms" over the years, and DRM is emphatically not a new topic/concern for them.

Neither is political activism. Really. :-)

DRM represents Yet Another Restriction of users' freedom to use both software and other types of material (movies, music, other forms of dats) in the ways they would like to, including a number of activities currently covered under "fair use" rights for non-digital media, and the fighting of such limitations has been at the very core of the FSF since the beginning of its existence.

I don't always (usually?) agree with RMS when it comes to his methods of protest, etc., but he does tend to be rational and consistent when articulating his positions. If you think DRM is acceptable, that's fine, but I think you'll find that a large percentage of the FOSS community strongly disagrees with you.

Are we extremists? Perhaps. Then again, so were a few angry men at Boston Harbor when the Brits tried to impose that Tea Act on the American colonies a number of years ago. :-)

The thing that I find interesting is that the recording and movie industries are trying to get the horse back in the barn forty some odd years after it escaped. Sharing musical recordings among friends has been common practice in the US since about 1960 when tape recorders first became generally available to the public and video did the same with the advent of the VCR. Now the various industry groups and companies are trying in some cases rather draconian tactics to undo what has been ingrained into several generations of Americans as standard procedure. I suspect that if the mainstream news media wern't owned by the same folks as the entertainment conglomerates, things might look a lot different right now.

I wholly agree with the author on the views. The time has come to explain to people that you cannot live only with FREE breeze, you need water and food to eat and undergarments to wear which we do not get for FREE.

FREE for use is what a less privileged user may benefit from. But one should be willing to pay more or respect the law when it comes to other related value additions and comforts.

Although I am a great admirer of Stallman, I feel DRM is not a task to be taken up by FSF especially the way it was done during a recent event.

Thanks again for writing your views in general interest.

Rajesh

The FSF's advocacy against DRM in both its licensing and its public statements shows its careful consideration of how freedom is nurtured.

Freedom is not anarchy; it requires structures to support it. Political freedom and civil rights, for example, are supported by courts, elections, armies, the press, federalism, separation of powers, and numerous other expensive and annoying systems. Other kinds of structures like ID checks, internal spying, systemic discrimination, secrecy, censorship, and impunity support more authoritarian political systems. As a society, we can choose which structures we live with.

DRM is a structure for creating and nurturing monopolies -- authoritarian systems that limit consumers' choices. It's no wonder you're seeing existing monopolists Microsoft, MPAA, RIAA, and Intel as big backers (with Apple as the new aspiring monopolist). Read the ads and manuals of DRM'd equipment -- you won't find the restrictions mentioned, except in very small print. DRM comes with ID checks, internal spying, systemic discrimination, secrecy, and censorship. If consumers knew the real deal before handing over their money, they wouldn't buy.

FSF is opposed to monopoly control of creative work. Its leverage has always come from persuasion, not from control. FSF's software doesn't come with anarchy ("do anything you want with this"), it comes with freedom ("pass on to others all the rights that you received"). If you don't like their software or their terms, you can pass it by.

FSF's new licensing actions say, "You can do DRM, but not with our software." Its new advocacy says, "Consumers, voters, DRM is a bad idea for you. Listen up!".