Henri Poole's blog

May Wong of Associated Press writes

The Boston-based advocacy group launched an online petition Thursday asking Bono to take a stand with them against copy-protection technologies that they say unnecessarily restrict consumers' rights to freely use the music and art they've purchased. Digital rights management technology is commonly used by companies such as Apple Computer Inc. or Microsoft Corp. to support the companies' own business strategies and satisfy the music industry's concerns about unfettered distribution of songs over the Internet.... [Defective By Design] contends that more liberal access and usage models will actually help increase sales by widening the base of art lovers."

Peter Sayer at ComputerWorld writes "Free software campaigner Richard Stallman said French youth should protest against a draft law on copyright that will be voted on Friday.

The bill threatens their freedom to watch DVDs using free software, and is designed to make French citizens submit to the will of media companies, he said, delivering the closing keynote address at the Paris Capitale du Libre conference on Monday night.

Asked what could stop the law, Stallman replied: "Thousands of French youth in the streets."

This morning (6/23/06), an interview with Peter Brown Executive Director of the FSF, was aired on BBC World Service. The segment with Peter begins at 8 minutes 20 seconds into the news report. "This protection [DRM] doesn't protect against the real threat that the big media companies supposedly face, which is the large mafia like organizations that pirate stuff and distribute it through their black markets. What we're talking about here is you, an individual a

Kit Roane of US News writes:

At issue is the software embedded in the songs bought from the iTunes music store that prevents them from being played on rival devices.