Hi Alex, gang, Thanks for documenting this. Good for us ex-Melbourneers!
- Promote the DRM-free sources -> we should compile (or find) a list. > For computer games, GOG (http://gog.com) and Humble Indie Bundle ( http://humblebundle.com) have done a great job promoting DRM-free gaming and still making profits. Not free software, but I suppose you have to pick your battles. (I think still making profits is important -- it's all well and good to say "things should be DRM-free!" but unless you can show profit, nobody is going to take you seriously.) - Talk to people who have been burnt (e.g. Ubisoft customers, who couldn't > play their games for a week). > games.slashdot.org/story/12/02/03/1446207/thanks-to-drm-some-ubisoft-games-wont-work-next-week Also, I was just talking to someone today who said something about Blu-ray I don't think I knew: that if you buy a new disc and own an older player, the disc may not work because the player's key may be untrustworthy so the disc manufacturer used a new key. I think you can upgrade the firmware in some players, but other players may be left out. Apparently this sort of thing already happened in 2007: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2007/10/new-blu-ray-discs-with-bd-drm-failing-to-play-on-some-devices.ars But I didn't find any more recent examples. Comment: when (if ;) copyright on a work expires, what happens to copies of > it that are DRM-encumbered? > Yes, very important. There's a great article on this here (with regards to software): https://www.pcworld.com/article/248571/why_history_needs_software_piracy.html >From the article: > Thanks to widespread adoption of aggressive digital rights management > (DRM) and a single-source model of distribution, most digitally distributed > software will vanish from the historical record when those stores shut > down. And believe me, they will shut down some day. If this doesn’t scare > you, then you need an allegorical history lesson. Here it is: > > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria>Imagine if a > publisher of 500,000 different printed book titles suddenly ceased > operation and magically rendered all sold copies of its books unreadable. > Poof. The information contained in them simply vanished. It would represent > an cultural catastrophe on the order of the burning of the Great Library > of Alexandria <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria> in 48 > B.C. In that fire, a majority of the Western world’s cultural history up to > that point turned to ash. > > Now take a look at the iTunes App Store, a 500,000 app repository of > digital culture. It’s controlled by a single company, and when it closes > some day (or it stops supporting older apps, like Apple already did with > the classic > iPod<http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/09/30/apple_removes_ipod_classic_click_wheel_games_from_itunes_store.html>), > legal access to those apps will vanish. Purchased apps locked on iDevices > will meet their doom when those gadgets stop working, as they are prone to > do. Even before then, older apps will fade away as developers decline to > pay the $100 a year required to keep their wares listed in the store. > Woh. I knew Apple charged $100 for a developer license. I didn't realise Apple made you pay $100 *every year* in order to keep your software listed. Is this true? Wow, it is true<https://developer.apple.com/support/ios/program-renewals.html> . So anyway, should be able to mine that article for some good arguments and examples against DRM. Hope this helps. Matt (Sydney) _______________________________________________ Free-software-melb mailing list Free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/mailman/listinfo/free-software-melb
