Real Networks to Linux - DRM or Die

Comment from /. on DRM. I thought it was a good analysis of the situation. DRM is evil. You should write your congress person to put a stop to this nonsense.

The content industry sees DRM as its saviour from the pirates. In fact, it will be their doom. Let’s take a look at what DRM will do, and to whom.

For this we’ll be looking at four groups of people:

1. The joe average sixpack crowd, who buy some music, copy some more from his friends and generally think DRM is the new acronym for the thingie to plug into your car to make it faster. He’s getting some music online, doesn’t make heavy use of torrent and is still plugged into Kazaa, but complains he doesn’t find much anymore.

2. The people who use suck the net dry, whether they need it or not. It’s there, it’s free, it’s on my HD. They don’t know jack about the inner workings of the DeCSS, don’t know who broke it, but they use it to rip it, with the neat and foolproof tools provided.

3. The people who know what DRM means to their privacy and who fear, hate and fight it. Not necessarily in that order. Out of principle, not because they want to pirate what’s available. But it’s a privacy thing.

4. The people with The Clue to actually break DRM.

A good way to fight back is to donate money to the EFF. They also provide methods for contacting your representives easier, not that contacting them will gaurentee action, but it does help and makes you feel better.