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Norway's fight against DRM continues
Recap of recent events:
As you might have observed, The Norwegian Consumer council has declared iTunes illegal because the DRM and EULA violates Norwegian law. Several European nations have now joined forces with Norway, and a few weeks ago Steve Jobs responded in an open letter that he would gladly remove all the DRM in iTunes Store if the record labels would allow him.
Now the Norwegian Consumer council has gone one step further and declared that you should have the following absolute rights (article in Norwegian) on how to use your legally purchased digital media (hastily translated by me):
1. Make backups
2. Watch and listen to the content whenever you want to.
3. Move content between media players.
4. Change the content to other practical formats.
5. Adjust equipment (I guess they mean things like upgrading the motherboard of a PC).
6. Use digital content without being subjected to surveillance.
7. Use private and public services (I'm not sure what they are referring to).
8. Use necessary technology to exercise your digital rights (like making DVDs playable on unsupported systems such as Linux?)
The council is not against DRM as long it doesn't violate these rules. They are advocating an effort to make a universal open source DRM standard. Also, this latest statement is no longer an attack specifically on iTunes or other online music shops, but on the entertainment business as a whole.
At the moment these "absolute rights" are not so absolute since they at some of the points are in direct violation of the current laws. On top of that, some of those laws have been enforced on Norway by the European Union because of trade agreements (Norway is not a member of EU). The Consumer council of our small country will thus start a campaign to change both national and EU laws! This fight may seem futile, but remember that consumer organisations in Germany and France are already supporting Norway's fight against iTunes.
You might agree with me that the Norwegian Consumer council is awesome, but I have to tell you about the utter stupidity that is also going on. A special group within the Police Department has been working on how to adjust old laws to be better suited for fighting Internet crime (which is a real necessity). In their proposal that was made public a few days ago, they state that the ISP's should be responsible for making it impossible for Norwegian users to access websites that violate Norwegian law, such as online casinos, hardcore porn and so forth (we have some very protective laws). If the Parliament votes for this (I am not certain they won't) Norway would get an Internet censorship that is only surpassed by China. Hurray. There is also some discussion whether the proposed laws would make it illegal for server administrators to make an attack on their own server to test security.
As you might have observed, The Norwegian Consumer council has declared iTunes illegal because the DRM and EULA violates Norwegian law. Several European nations have now joined forces with Norway, and a few weeks ago Steve Jobs responded in an open letter that he would gladly remove all the DRM in iTunes Store if the record labels would allow him.
Now the Norwegian Consumer council has gone one step further and declared that you should have the following absolute rights (article in Norwegian) on how to use your legally purchased digital media (hastily translated by me):
1. Make backups
2. Watch and listen to the content whenever you want to.
3. Move content between media players.
4. Change the content to other practical formats.
5. Adjust equipment (I guess they mean things like upgrading the motherboard of a PC).
6. Use digital content without being subjected to surveillance.
7. Use private and public services (I'm not sure what they are referring to).
8. Use necessary technology to exercise your digital rights (like making DVDs playable on unsupported systems such as Linux?)
The council is not against DRM as long it doesn't violate these rules. They are advocating an effort to make a universal open source DRM standard. Also, this latest statement is no longer an attack specifically on iTunes or other online music shops, but on the entertainment business as a whole.
At the moment these "absolute rights" are not so absolute since they at some of the points are in direct violation of the current laws. On top of that, some of those laws have been enforced on Norway by the European Union because of trade agreements (Norway is not a member of EU). The Consumer council of our small country will thus start a campaign to change both national and EU laws! This fight may seem futile, but remember that consumer organisations in Germany and France are already supporting Norway's fight against iTunes.
You might agree with me that the Norwegian Consumer council is awesome, but I have to tell you about the utter stupidity that is also going on. A special group within the Police Department has been working on how to adjust old laws to be better suited for fighting Internet crime (which is a real necessity). In their proposal that was made public a few days ago, they state that the ISP's should be responsible for making it impossible for Norwegian users to access websites that violate Norwegian law, such as online casinos, hardcore porn and so forth (we have some very protective laws). If the Parliament votes for this (I am not certain they won't) Norway would get an Internet censorship that is only surpassed by China. Hurray. There is also some discussion whether the proposed laws would make it illegal for server administrators to make an attack on their own server to test security.
Comments
Also, the idea of open source DRM is completely nonsensical. That's like saying we'll put a lock on everything, but everyone can look at the keys.
No DRM at all is the only answer.
I agree of course that open source DRM would be easier to break, perhaps too easy. Maybe the thought behind the council's decision is to make DRM so usable that most people won't go through the hassle of breaking it. I don't know. Absolutely!