NYC LOCAL: Tuesday 25 October 2005 NYU Free Culture Club: Protest DRM at Virgin Record Store 14th Street and Broadway New York City

[secretary]

Exhortatory Note from Jay Sulzberger

Below my signature is a copy of the announcement by the NYU Free Culture
Club of the protest.

DRM is more than an annoyance, and more than an assault on "consumer
rights".  DRM is larger and worse:

http://www.panix.com/~jays/what.is.drm.3
http://www.nyfairuse.org/action/palladium

The next few months offer several opportunities to take the battle to the
other side.  In particular, in early December 2005 the Library of Congress
will accept proposals for exemptions to the DMCA Anti-Circumvention
Clauses.  Let us prepare and let us propose and let us rebut and let us
attend the hearings.

http://www.sethf.com/publications/dmca-guide.php


And let us, oldbies and GNUbies and free BSDians, and all of the Free
Software Movement, help at this protest!

Let us help by showing up.  And let us explain that the issue is not a
matter of convenience, but rather of fundamental human rights.

Jay Sulzberger <secretary@lxny.org>
Corresponding Secretary LXNY
LXNY is New York's Free Computing Organization.
http://www.lxny.org


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  what="official NYU Free Culture Club announcement">

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  Subject: Washington Square News -
  X-URL: 
http://www.nyunews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/10/18/43546858c6630?in_archive=1

                      DRM technology injures consumer rights

     by Laura Berger
     October 18, 2005

     On Oct. 25 at 7 p.m., the Free Culture Club is holding a protest in
     front of the Virgin Records store at 14th Street and Broadway. The
     purpose of this protest is to educate customers about the use of
     digital rights management technology that might be be placed on CDs
     unbeknownst to the customer and to encourage Virgin to use a label
     that clearly indicates and explains DRM technology on CDs that have
     DRM technology blocks.

     Many CDs currently on sale have DRM technologies on them in order to
     prevent the customer from duplicating copyrighted music. The
     technology can work in a number of ways, anything from scrambling the
     legitimate audio data to sneakily installing software onto users
     computers. But the intention is always the same: to prevent the
     consumer from making a digital copy of the content.

     The problem with DRM is that this technology actually restricts
     consumers from transferring their new CD onto their computer, or even
     making a backup copy. As a college student who loves her iPod and uses
     her computer as a jukebox more often then not, this restriction struck
     me as deeply unjust. There's a provision in U.S. copyright law about
     fair use, which establishes that if there is a reasonable and
     legitimate legal use for a technology, it should be legal.

     The fair-use doctrine allows ripping CDs to a computer so that
     people who purchase music can put their music onto their iPods. This
     is also what allows people to use their computer to play the music.
     College students, who often don't have the space to keep both a
     computer and a sound system in their dorms, tend to have just the
     former. They are especially harmed by DRM, which prohibits ripping and
     prevents them from playing CDs on their computers.

     Fine, you might say. So I won't buy a CD that uses DRM.
     Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to tell a CD with DRM from a
     regular one without using it first. There is no requirement that these
     CDs to be sold with a special label or warning, and because most music
     stores won't allow customers to return a CD after it has been
     unwrapped, customers can find out for themselves for $15. Pirates,
     whom this technology is designed to hinder, are usually
     technologically savvy enough to get around the DRM software, but the
     average customer won't be able to use the CD that was legally
     purchased. This technology is designed to prevent illegal duplication
     of music but, in the end, all it ends up doing is harming the innocent
     and technologically naive.

     DRM restrictions have also made an impact on buying music from the
     iTunes music store. The DRM attached to the iTunes music allows users
     to copy a song a certain number of times. If the customer wants to
     make more copies than is allowed, they could "hack" the DRM (using a
     program called FairTunes), but unfortunately, according to "The
     Customer is Always Wrong", the Electronic Frontier Foundation=E2s guide,
     breaking the DRM or distributing the tools to break DRM may expose
     you to liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act even if
     you're not making any illegal uses.

     Organizations like Free Culture and the EFF support your fair-use
     rights to the music you legitimately purchase and thereby object to
     technologies like DRM. While we support artists rights, we also
     contend that consumer rights are just as important. DRM constricts, if
     not totally undermines, the doctrine of fair use and there is
     currently little opposition toward more record companies implementing
     it. Record companies and stores need to hear from the people who
     count, namely consumers, that we notice and care about the substantial
     negative consequences of DRM.

     If you want to find out more about DRM and other copyright, technology
     and cultural issues, check our website or come to our protest. We'll
     be handing out flyers, talking to consumers and raising awareness
     about DRM and new technologies. Copyright should be about helping
     artists make music that consumers want to support and participate in,
     not about helping record executives fatten their revenue streams and
     lock consumers into backward technologies. The point of copyright law
     is to protect the artists, not the record labels, and it's not
     supposed to hurt the general law-abiding, music-purchasing public.

     Laura Berger is an op/ed contributor for WSN. E-mail responses to
     opinion@nyunews.com.

     Note: Most newer browsers don't need a print-friendly version of this
     article. Just click File, then Print from your browser's menu at the
     previous page.
       _________________________________________________________________

                         2005 Washington Square News

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