NewsLinx: http://www.newslinx.com Linux Users Say SDMI Contest A Trick - ZDNet News http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2628133,00.html The Linux Journal is sponsoring <A HREF="http://noframes.linuxjournal.com/articles/misc/0022.html"> a boycott </A> of the Secure Digital Music Initiative <A HREF="http://www.hacksdmi.org/" target="_blank"> hacking challenge </A>, which starts Friday and promises to pay $10,000 to any hacker who strips out the watermark from a digital song. SDMI is a technology initiative launched by the record companies to crack down on piracy. In the coming weeks, SDMI will try out a variety of security measures, with plans to eventually adopt a hacker-tested technology that will prevent people from playing bootleg songs on SDMI-compatible hardware. However, some Linux lovers say the record industry is only using the hackers as a "free consulting" service to help it crack down on legal uses of music in the future, in an attempt to exert unprecedented control over when and where people play songs. The Linux Journal is urging readers to sign a letter saying they won't play along. "Thanks, SDMI, but no thanks. I won't do your dirty work for you," the letter states. "I will not help test programs or devices that violate privacy or interfere with the right of fair use." People who sign the letter will agree that they will never make a bootleg copy of a recording, but will only play one copy at a time in different devices, an action that's legal under the concept of fair use, but may be hard to follow in these days of rampant digital file swapping. [ it will also "be hard to follow" when SDMI is deployed, bcos you'll have to buy a different copy for every device you have, and maybe even "rent" it every time you want to play it -- the whole thrust of this "digital rights management" shit is to replace ownership with rental ]
