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-f... 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.htm...
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)