Defective by Design Launches the 35 Days Against DRM Campaign

Defective by Design is a web site dedicated to the public awareness around DRM (Digital Restrictions Management). It engages consumers to take action against "products [which] have been intentionally crippled from the users' perspective, and [that] are therefore 'defective by design'".

Today they launched the 35 Days Against DRM Campaign. Everyday they will "be publishing [consumers] stories -- about a product, company, service, executive or politician that has has inflicted the nightmare of Digital Restrictions Management on you and our society, reminding us all why this holiday season we need an all-out boycott." We will follow the campaign here day by day.

Here we go:

• MacBook - "When it launched the new Macbooks, Apple announced that they would sport a new digital video output connector, known as Mini DisplayPort. What Apple failed to mention, however, is that those connectors allow movies studios to force the computer to authenticate any external monitor before allowing playback of programs purchased or rented from the iTunes Store (Microsoft's Windows Vista does something similar). In other words, the HDTV monitor or projector that worked for you yesterday, won't work with your new computer tomorrow if Hollywood has embedded a flag in the iTunes content you paid for." - From EFF: Apple Downgrades Macbook Video with DRM
• Netflix - Crazy stories like this one - found on Boing Boing - abound: "I recently purchased a new HD monitor, but when I installed it, I lost the streaming capabilities on Netflix's website. When I tried to troubleshoot the issue, I had to agree to let Netflix "reset my DRM" by destroying my Amazon.com files. After talking with Netflix's technical support, I learned that the real issue had to do with the HD capabilities of my PC setup. Because Hollywood wants to punish people for using technology that is outside of their protocol, they are denying me access to low resolution internet videos until I downgrade my monitor to standard definition."
• Overdrive who claim to be "leading digital media services for libraries, schools, enterprises, publishers, retailers" "have few dozen [of non-DRM] items in its collection of thousands of items". Here's how they explain DRM: http://www.overdrive.com/products/dlr/tour/Topic_DRM.html
• BBC iPlayer - Here's a bit of nonesense: "The BBC is funded by every single household with a TV in the UK. Initially iPlayer was Windows XP only, with Vista support coming later. Then, the BBC released a Flash version, but as Flash isn't free software, users of free software operating systems were still left in the cold. Ashley Highfield laughably estimated there were 400 GNU/Linux users in the entire UK, and was proven badly wrong."
• Yahoo! and MSN - ""First MSN Music, then Yahoo Music. Yahoo offered refunds in the end, but it highlights the very real problem of DRM services closing down" - Many scary stories are to be found around these store closures such as DRM sucks redux: Microsoft to nuke MSN Music DRM keys and DRM still sucks: Yahoo Music going dark, taking keys with it
• Windows Media Center - "Following reports that digital television viewers were blocked from recording the new season of NBC's "Gladiators", Microsoft confirmed that it is preventing users from recording the show. They claim they were acting on behalf of NBC, and are in line with regulations set by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in disrupting computer usage based upon the so-called "broadcast flag" that was transmitted alongside the show." Think of what they can do on your behalf...
• Prince - Yep, the one you are thinking about. "Luckily I only purchased one of MANY DRM-laden album from Prince's now defunct New Power Generation website, Xpectation. It came in the DRM-encumbered Windows Media format, but this was before I was ever aware of the horrors of DRM. Ironically, I EXPECTED the files to work pretty much forever, maybe not forever but at least a few good years. However, I guess the joke was on me as I misplaced the files on an external harddrive a year or so ago and recently located them only to find out there's absolutely nothing I can do with them." An other incentive to piracy.
• Nintendo Wii - "Both WiiWare and Virtual Console games include DRM, and downloads are locked to the Wii console. [snip] eBay is full of second hand Nintendo games, which for many video game fans are an important part of gaming history but DRM-encumbered games can never be sold in this way. Nintendo's Virtual Console thrives on exactly this premise -- rather than buying a dusty copy of Super Mario Bros from eBay, you can download it instantly to your Wii console for a few dollars."
• Zune - "Every Zune device creates the appearance of an opportunity for connection. Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing lets consumers spontaneously share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with friends between Zune devices, all of which will “expire” (it sits there in your music list grayed out... taunting you) in a few short days regardless of the copyright terms on the particular content being shared.."
• Spore - "nowhere in EA's (Electronic Arts) documentation is there any mention that SecuROM will be installed along with Spore, which amounts to covertly installing extra software which cannot be easily removed and is known to cause problems onto people's computers without their consent or knowledge." SecuROM is the malware that made Spore validate itself by "phoning home" every ten days, and which would only allow one to install Spore three times
• iTunes - "... let's not forget that DRM on music is only one part of the iTunes picture. Remember all of the other things that iTunes does to restrict its users: TV shows and movies have DRM, Software applications have DRM, Games have DRM, Audiobooks have DRM"
• Grand Theft Auto - "GTA IV PC also requires a number of software installations, including Games For Windows, Adobe Flash, Internet Explorer, SecuROM and our Rockstar Games Social Club application." Outch!
• HDTV - "HDTV is a countdown to obsolete hardware, with the unintended (or maybe just unpublicized) side effect being that viewers have fewer options, since all-digital technology can be more easily restricted."
• RIAA - "Wall Street Journal announced that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is set to abandon its mass lawsuits against individuals. Since 2003, the RIAA has opened legal proceedings against approximately 35,000 people, including a 13-year-old and a dead person. Instead, they intend to work through Internet Service Providers (ISPs). ISPs will be asked to email customers, asking them to stop sharing music, and threaten them with slower connections and disconnection if they continue. Many ISPs are sadly already in negotiations with major record labels and other entertainment companies."
• Steve Jobs - Some talk, some do. Jobs talks. "'If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own.' (Jobs, May 2002) And yet, here we are, over 6 years later, and Steve Jobs's Apple is the only major vendor of digital music that is actively preventing this."
• Amazon's Kindle - The idea is cool but the restrictions really suck. Too bad the philosophy behind music hasn't yet been applied to books. Let's hope that it's only a matter of (little) time...
• Adobe - "Currently, as always, Adobe are up to some pretty dirty tricks. We're already seeing millions of users stuck with their deliberately crippled software -- Adobe Acrobat, Flash Player."
• DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) - Often used in the name of creators protection, however, "the DMCA does not protect creators. These overstepping boundaries are a burden to creativity, expression, culture, innovation, and the consumer." See the once-proposed Canadian version here
• iPhone - iPhone completely blocks free software, endorses and supports DRM, provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge, won't play patent/DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora. Checkout out an alternative: openmoko.
• Microsoft Vista - Microsoft and other computer companies sometimes refer to these restrictions as "Trusted Computing" -- given that they are designed to make it so that your computer stops trusting you and starts trusting Microsoft, these restrictions are more appropriately called “Treacherous Computing”. After all, who should your computer take its orders from?
• HD-DVD - Check out the AACS encryption key controversy article on Wikipedia and screeshot of Digg's homepage back then. Also, be sure not to miss the opportinity to check out the Free Speech Flag.
• TiVO - "If there is no signature or if the signature is invalid, the iPhone will refuse to install the software. If the software has been modified in any way, the signature check will fail. The signature check is also tied to the user's specific device, which means that she is not permitted to transfer or copy downloaded programs directly between iPhones, and any other copying is permitted or not permitted at Apple's whim. This system of rejecting software that doesn't pass a signature check -- even when modifications to the software are legally permitted -- was made famous by TiVo, and so is called 'tivoization'".
• SDMI, the Secure Digital Music Initiative - "SDMI would use a watermarking feature and wanted to ensure this could not be detected. As such, they announced a challenge, inviting hackers and crypto experts to remove the watermarking. One group of researchers, led by Ed Felten, claimed to have successfully removed the watermark according to the automated judging software supplied by the SDMI. Yet when Felten attempted to publish an academic paper describing the analysis of his work, the SDMI, RIAA and Verance Corporation threatened legal action under the auspices of the DMCA."
• Biden and Leahy - "Sponsored the controversial S.3325 bill, aka the "PRO IP" bill.", "sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs, ", "Later, he signed a letter advocating the prosecution of individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks, and even as recently as last year, he sponsored an RIAA-backed bill aimed at restricting Americans' ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services."
• ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement - "Although the proposed treaty's title might suggest that the agreement deals only with counterfeit physical goods (such as medicines), what little information has been made available publicly by negotiating governments about the content of the treaty makes it clear that it will have a far broader scope, and in particular, will deal with new tools targeting 'Internet distribution and information technology'."
• Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates - Vista, Zune, Windows Media Center, MSN Music and the so far funny Window 7.
• Digital copy - Digital Copy media come with an disc that allows users to make a copy of the content to a MS/MAC (not Linux) computer/mobile device/etc. You can make one copy. One. More in details on computerworld.com
• Edgar Bronfman, Warner Music - "The notion that music does not deserve the same protection as software, film, video games or other intellectual property, simply because there is an unprotected legacy product in the physical world, is completely without logic or merit."
• 'Trusted' Computing - "Trust is the deep conviction of truth and rightness, and can not be enforced". Check out this awesome video on 'trusted' computing.
• RIAA - "Internet News reports: A music industry official, who asked not to be identified, said the proposed ISP infringement notice is intended to send an early warning to downloaders. Since a large of percentage of music downloading is done by teenagers, the RIAA hoped the notifications, which were to be sent to the account holders, might tip off parents as to their children's possible copyright infringements."
• Sony - Blu-Ray and the PlayStation 3 - "Sony have also made changes in firmware upgrades to the device to make it harder to get around the restrictions and access the PS3's powerful 2D/3D graphics hardware from GNU/Linux." And "Sony and other DRM-laden vendors of Blu Ray can disable a Blu Ray player and/or movie from playing."
• MOB TV - "According to their FAQ, their subscribers would need a computer loaded with non-free software like Microsoft Windows, Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer with ActiveX. For GNU/Linux users in Singapore, that means we would be unable to access their content."

And for those looking at DRM free gift inspiration, check out their Guide to DRM Free Living!