In response to my post on Product Extension, I received a long comment that did not post because of pilot error -- I forgot to click the "Accept Comment" button. So here it is (I plan to continue the debate next week):
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I see nothing that resembles "an assault on the rights of all creative artists to protect and monetize their property" on the Free Software Foundation website you linked to. There are lots of places that sell digital music unencumbered by DRM -- Emusic.com, for instance, is one I have subscribed to. Nothing about the FSF's stance on DRM implies that buying from anyplace that offers unencumbered digital media is a bad thing, and selling such media certainly qualifies as monetization.

You have a flawed understanding of what the FSF is based on, "in theory" and in fact. The fundamental principle that underpins the FSF is that the end-user should be free to do with software as he wishes, for his own personal use. DRM, by its very nature, is an attack on that principle. DRM imposes end-user restrictions on the use of that software that would not otherwise exist. The FSF seeks to prevent anyone from taking other people's work and locking it up with DRM against the wishes of the creators of that work. It does not prevent others from "commercializing" it -- if it did, a fair chunk of the software sold at places like CompUSA would disappear overnight. For that matter, so would half the Internet, since open-source software powers many of the Internet's most successful commercial ventures.

Imposing an anti-DRM condition is well within the rights of those who author open-source software. If you don't like it, don't use it -- or at least, don't redistribute it, since the license only comes into play upon redistribution. On the other hand, if you do redistribute it, you are bound to honor the licensing restrictions placed upon it by the copyright holder.

Perhaps you could explain how setting an anti-DRM condition on licensing imposes a philosophy in a manner that is different from the way *any* license imposes a philosophy? What is different about open-source developers saying what can not be done with their software than Microsoft saying what can not be done with its software? Why the double-standard?

What I find refreshing about the FSF's stance is that it acknowledges that the only DRM people will find acceptable is toothless DRM. Time and time again, I see people -- people who seem to have a reasonably healthy respect for creators' rights -- defend Apple's iTMS DRM because "it's easy to get around." In fact I have not seen a *single* discussion of the DRM scheme employed by Apple that does not eventually come around to this conclusion. It demonstrates, I think, the extent to which people are willing to support the creators' rights. They don't mind DRM only in as much as it presents a minor inconvenience to their use of the product, but they do not respect DRM as a mechanism by which the rights of the creator can be enforced upon their use of the product. Likewise, I've seen discussions in both Linux and Windows forums regarding copying DVDs -- legally purchased DVDs -- in which it is clear the end-user presumes the existence of a right to copy the DVD despite the technical roadblock imposed by CSS and the legal roadblock imposed by the DMCA. I have seen people grudgingly acknowledge that such copying is illegal, but never have I seen anyone admit to it being unethical, nor seen any indication that if such copying was not technically feasible, they would continue to support the DVD format.

The FSF, to its credit, is willing to address these issues head-on, without the obfuscation that characterizes the entertainment industry's shifting (one might say, shifty) pronouncements about what is and isn't acceptable with regard to the use of its products. It is the one organization that I am aware of that does not tolerate a "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" stance on the rights of both creators and end-users. If more organizations that purport to speak for the rights of either were willing to be so direct, we might not have created a nation of casual law-breakers and, as you call them, free-riders. We might have a nation that actually respects its laws, and has laws on the books that are worthy of respect. I wish the RIAA, MPAA, BSA -- and, for that matter, the Progress & Freedom Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- were as willing to lay their cards on the table and speak as clearly and directly as the FSF does.

I think it is clear, from everything I have seen and read, that people would not be willing to tolerate DRM that interferes with their own basic sense of fair play, as Apple cleverly chose to call its DRM scheme. We won't know, however, until DRM is either inescapable by all but the most dedicated of pirates, or until its imposition is guaranteed to be so benign as to be negligible, as casually and easily ignored or skirted as it is today, with the appropriate legal protections for fair use in place. But we have no such guarantee, and we have no legal protection. Not even iTMS can guarantee that the terms under which it sells -- or, actually, licenses -- media will continue to hold. At least until we do, I fully support FSF in its efforts to ensure it continues to be possible for people who reject DRM to use computers, and even to enjoy digital entertainment created and distributed by creators who do not seek to impose DRM on their customers. How, exactly, does that differ from what the PFF wants? What is wrong with a free market in which Creator #1 can offer his product in patent- and DRM-free formats and Creator #2 can offer her product encumbered with patent and DRM protections, both asking what they think are fair market prices?

(By the way, I attempted to leave a much shorter version of this as a comment to the post, but I got a message saying that comments had been disabled. Odd that the PFF website appears to allow for comments, but then won't accept them. You must be using proprietary software -- it never works right!)
--
Michael M. ++ Portland, OR ++ USA
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." --S. Jackson

posted by James DeLong @ 9:50 AM | DRM & Watermarks, etc.

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