Defective by Design

The announcement of Apple's new iPhone releases marks yet another highly anticipated product launch from the technology giant. As expected, the new iPhones will be faster, more powerful, and continue to hide the various anti-user restrictions behind a sleek and seductive user interface. Each release of a product or operating system from Apple means the latest and greatest they have to offer, including the strongest Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technologies yet.

In any discussion concerning DRM, there are bound to be honest questions and misconceptions that keep being repeated. Without a resource to accurately respond to them, some small misconceptions can turn into popular belief.

"#CancelNetflix I used it and used to love it. But keep your hands off DRM in HTML5. Not cool. I'm stopping my rel. with you." -- @jordiburcas*

Remember Turn off the TV Week? A chance each summer to switch off the boob tube, recover from brain rot, and maybe even spend some extra time out in the sunshine? This summer, we have an even better reason to spend less time in front of a screen: the video streaming giant Netflix is collaborating with the World Wide Web Consortium to destroy Web freedom.

The seventh annual International Day Against DRM featured a glamorous
petition delivery, awareness-raising events on three continents, and
ebook sales from prominent DRM-free publishers. Some of the Day's
highlights included:

In celebration of International Day Against DRM today, we rolled out the red carpet at W3C to deliver your petition signatures. Internet freedom's most stylish gathered to present W3C with an award for "Best Supporting Role in 'The Hollyweb'," accompanied by over 22,500 verified signatures from members of the public who oppose a proposal that would weave Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into the fabric of the Web.

The fight to keep DRM out of HTML is heating up. This Friday, Defective by Design will pay a visit to the Cambridge, MA, office of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to hand-deliver our petition against the Encrypted Media Extensions proposal (EME).

International Day Against DRM is this Friday, May 3rd. People all over the world are going to be showing their opposition to DRM, and you can join them!

Organize a local event today and we'll help you promote it. An event can be as simple as tabling at your campus, handing out information at a library or bookstore that offers ebooks with DRM. Find out if there's a local event near you. If there isn't, get one started!

Today Defective by Design, through the Free Software Foundation, joined twenty-six other organizations in releasing a joint letter to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Web's standards-setting body, condemning Encrypted Media Extensions (EME).

Hollywood is at it again. Its latest ploy to take over the Web? Use its influence at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to weave Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into HTML5 — in other words, into the very fabric of the Web. Millions of Internet users came together to defeat SOPA/PIPA, but now Big Media moguls are going through non-governmental channels to try to sneak digital restrictions into every interaction we have online.

Soon after announcing the big expansion and complete overhaul of our Guide to DRM-free Living, we also announced the DRM-free label, an effort to create recognizable branding for providers of DRM-free files to quickly communicate to users that they don't have to worry about being encumbered by restrictive technologies such as Digital Restrictions Management.

The Book Industry Communication is holding a debate on Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) in Strand on March 4th. Can you attend and vote DRM-free?

The "debate", which will include a panel of experts, asks participants to vote for one of two statements about DRM. They are:

Online self-publishing platforms have lowered barriers for authors to get their works published, giving rise to a new kind of literature that works without big publishers. Lulu is one of the most popular solutions for writers to easily sell their works in print or as ebooks. A few years ago, they defended their DRM-encumbered ebooks, but they have just announced that they are saying goodbye to DRM.

The fight against DRM often pits us against some of the biggest companies and the most dominant ways of thinking in the technology business. What gives us the independence to speak out -- and the power to make your voice heard --is the support of our members. Now, we need your help to keep Defective by Design strong in 2013.

by Libby Reinish and Kÿra

Holiday season is upon us, which means a bombardment of advertising for the latest and greatest tech toys, and the onslaught of enticing deals is extremely effective. On Cyber Monday, hordes of virtual shoppers took to the Web in search of the newest gadgets to bestow upon their loved ones.

Imagine if you came home and discovered all of your bookshelves ransacked, their contents nowhere to be found. That's what happened to Amazon customer Linn, but the bookshelves were digital. Three years ago, Amazon showed the world that they have the power to delete copies of books from readers' Kindles en masse, and now they are finally taking heat for exerting this power over readers' entire libraries.

We've announced a new version of the DRM-free logo!

The success of DRM-free bundles has been a powerful counterargument to the claim that Digital Restrictions Management is necessary for sustainable digital publishing. These bundles are forming around music and literature, and really showcase being DRM-free as a major selling point. Now, the Big Bang Bundle by StoryBundle has just launched, and the Humble Music Bundle has just a couple hours to go!

We've just finished a major update of the Guide to DRM-free Living with dozens of new places to get ebooks, movies, and music without DRM and a page of worst-offenders. There have been some exciting developments in the realm of DRM opposition on ebooks, like Tor/Forge dropping DRM on ebooks, and we wanted to spruce up the guide to reflect all the progress that's been made.

Blizzard has released the long-awaited game Diablo 3 to much fanfare, and yet to many gamers, much disappointment and frustration because of the game's DRM system. It requires a permanent internet connection to play -- moving much of the in-game interaction and logic to the network. Blizzard is using Diablo 3 to operate an online auction house, using real-world currency or in-game gold, which in turn can be exchanged between players to purchase weapons, materials and upgrades for your in-game character.

Friday, May 4th was the fourth International Day Against DRM, and wow — what a day!

We were supported by our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Creative Commons, the Accessible Computing Foundation, Fight for the Future, APRIL, and our sister organizations, FSF France, FSF India and FSF Europe.

On May 4th, members of the Defective by Design DRM Elimination Crew all over the world will join together at local events to protest Digital Restrictions Management.

Events in Boston, Madrid, London and Toronto are already coming together, and more are on the way. See http://dayagainstdrm.org/ for the latest events.

Let us know where you are located, so we can contact you about events in your area!

Speaking at the Digital Book World Conference in New York last week, Matteo Berlucchi, CEO of Anobii, urged major book publishers to abandon their use of DRM on ebooks. HarperCollins, Penguin, and Random House each have a stake in the ebook retail and social networking company based in the UK.

Boston's Louis CK has a new show on his website, but he's doing things a little differently with this one. To quote his site: "No DRM, no regional restrictions, no crap. You can download this file, play it as much as you like, burn it to a DVD, whatever."

This is an adult show with adult themes. Not for children. 18+

https://buy.louisck.net/purchase -- $5 for the show. 1.2Gb download with accompanying Ogg Theora stream available.

Thinking of doing some holiday shopping? We hope that when purchasing for loved ones and friends that you'll consider avoiding companies and products designed to restrict freedom and consider supporting companies and organizations that defend freedom.

To help you make informed shopping decision and to avoid products that are defective by design, we've put together a short 2011 Holiday Buying Guide. We will be updating the guide throughout the holiday season, so please keep coming back for new tips and suggestions.

Guardian article by Cory Doctorow on the BBC's dealings with Ofcom to add DRM to HDTV in the UK.

Amazon came out with their newest line of Kindle ebook readers today, including the appropriately named "Kindle Fire".

To quote their TV commercial: "The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all."

This device does not kindle that fire -- it extinguishes it, with more of the same digital restrictions.

Let's look at the facts:

If you haven't seen Sharing by xkcd, it's worth a look.

In the strip, some friends discover a tree with a USB port sticking out of it. Upon connecting a computer to it, they discover an ebook -- Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, as a DRM'd Amazon Kindle file.

The book cannot be opened and sharing is not allowed.