Circumventing DRM (Digital Rights Management) is against the law. I’m not saying whether I’m for or against this fact - I’m just putting it out there for context. As the law stands right now, and as I understand it, taking measures to work around, break or otherwise defeat DRM is illegal. There are of course technical details involved and ways to bend these rules, but those aren’t at the heart of what I want to write about. I’m simply stating that, generally speaking, we live in a society that governs itself by laws, and we’ve agreed to abide by this system.
Obviously, this doesn’t make a lot of people happy. Maybe they’re pirating content and DRM pisses them off. Maybe they want to copy that DVD movie they just bought to iTunes or their PVR - an entirely legitimate desire, in my opinion - or maybe they’re simply idealists who believe that locking down freely distributable digital content is a violation of, well, one ideal or another.
Regardless of where the majority of opponents to DRM are coming from, a boatload of digg’s users revolted against the service last night and this morning for removing posts that contained a 16-digit code that helps to crack the DRM on HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. Users went nuts, calling out digg for ‘bowing down to the man’ and bitching that their right to free speech was being violated.
I’m not here, at least for now, to debate those issues since they both run very, very deep and we likely wouldn’t get much done. This topic amongst geeks and nerds runs about as deep in the vein as religion or politics, and each of us can get as stubborn on our stance as the next guy.
I am here, however, to present a different option for effecting change in this world of digital content and 21st century technology: put your ideas where your rebellion is. Most people who I see posting this code in a unified “F-U” to digg or the man also typically rant about how bad DRM is for the industry and how, in their opinion, it isn’t actually effective in protecting content. Again, I’m not here to agree with or argue against any of those points: I want everyone who is opposed to DRM to start offering some options on how to fix the problem and then start doing something about it. Organize a protest, call your senator, get on the news, kick up some dirt - but start using all this technology at our disposal to help things move forward. Is this a cultural problem? Do you hate DRM or these companies because you feel they charge far too high of a markup on their products? How can we help improve our situation? Who’s offices can we start emailing and calling? What TV news networks, radio stations and magazines will listen to our cause and give us time in the spotlight?
Free speech and the rest of our laws weren’t conceived simply to allow us the perceived right to post DVD crack codes on our blogs and bitch about what we feel is wrong. They were created to give us the power to combine our efforts as a society and effect change; to help make the U.S. and the rest of the world a better place.
So put your ideas where your rebellion is. Be a part of the change that helps move things forward.
[tags]DRM, digg, software, culture, politics[/tags]
