Naughty ole DVD Jon has been at it again. He cracked Apple's Fairplay DRM so that he could have an iTunes client application that ran on UNIX. Now, this is not taking the music for nothing, the iTunes fee is still paid, but the music is unencumbered with DRM.
Apple blocked it. DVD Jon unblocked it in less than 24 hours.
This really just reinforces two things in my mind, and this is the last I will say on the subject.
DRM punishes the honest customer, and because of a phenomenon know as BORE (Break Once Run Everywhere) the only way to prevent this removal of DRM happening is to shut down the capabilities of the generic processing machines, the PC, that we have come to rely on.
It is a futile act to try an impose this DRM. DVD Jon lives in Norway, and in Norway what he does is not illegal.
The music companies like iTunes and the new Napster because they pay high fees for essentially cost-free distribution of digital files. However, a legal service in Russia is Allofmp3.com, which charges by the megabyte for DRM free files. The music companies hate it, but cannot shut it down because they do not own the Russian legislature.
So, unless there is complete control of all the machines, and legal jurisdictions on the Internet, and the ability to block any file that has been broken, then the whole exercise is futile.
You cannot impose a law on a population that does not agree with it. It's on the books but not enforceable. What you can do is hobble the freedom of your machines in such a way that there is going to be economic disruption to your own countries activities in R&D and exchange of information, actively making other locations more attractive.
Maybe it is time to buy Novell stock after all. (the new home of SUSE Linux and other OSS products)
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