monkinetic weblog

Steve Ivy's Weblog - Since 1999 - XII Ed.

Killer DRM - All Your Rights Are Belong to Us

God. I haven't enough breath to say how many things are wrong with this proposed digital rights management bill. This is not digital rights mangement. It's digital rights removal. As content moves to digital formats, media companies are finding that software/hardware can make it possible for them to absolutely control how "their" content is used, viewed, etc. No more pesky "fair use" (in current copyright law). The software is creating law. The DMCA basically says, "any restriction we can put on you in the software is legal". This upcoming bill is worse. Say goodbye to taping your favorite tv-shows. Say goodbye to ripping you cds to mp3. Say goodbye to lending that book from the Library (themselves sure to be illegal soon) to a friend. The Communist states could only dream of having so much control over the information to which their subjects had access.

My name is Steve Ivy and I write about technology, the open web, social software, and general nerdity on monkinetic.com. You should follow me on Twitter or subscribe to this blog if you like what you're reading. I spend my days hacking Movable Type, python, Django, and various other efforts at Wallrazer. This is my personal site.