Teleread
One of my personal favorite blogs, Teleread is a haven for the anti-DRM reader. More Teleread DRM…
“The Perils of DRM Overkill For Large Publishers” by Jim Noring
“Right now many book pirates are laboriously scanning copyrighted paper books, running the scans through OCR, proofing the texts, and then creating digital versions in various formats. The digital versions are then distributed via several newsgroups, IRC, and P2P systems. Many are of very high production quality. If any paper book was or is a recent best-seller, you will find it online somewhere in a fairly high quality digital format…”
- My thoughts: Noring’s article not only finds the weak points in publisher’s arguments that DRM will save their investments, he provides tangible and hyperinked suggestions for solutions.
“‘Book insurance’—to try to guarantee you can read your DRMed e-books in the future?” by David Rothman
“…I proposed…a centralized system to guarantee that consumers would have access to DRM-tainted books, if publishers insisted on using this loathsome technology. DRM’s side effects can be a little like the tornados that insurance companies “protect” you against. You never know what’s coming but would prefer be as “safe” as possible. In that vein, as I recall, I suggested in PW a form of centralized registration. The best solution would be no DRM on your purchases, of course—such tornados are manmade. But failing that, we need incentives to make certain that to the extent possible, people can own their DRMed e-books.”
- My thoughts: As always, Teleread founder Rothman does a great job linking and bringing in others’ points of view without sacrificing his own. He’s definitely one of the more outspoken bloggers I’ve found.
“RickBoucher takes over House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee” by Chris Meadows
“Whether Obama is “selling out” or not, not all the news about Washington appointees is necessarily bad. Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) is replacing Edward Markey (D-MA) as the head of the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee. Boucher’s name will be familiar, to those who follow such things, as the representative who has been trying to get a “digital media bill of rights” passed that would make it legal for consumers to bypass Digital Rights Management (DRM) in the name of making fair use of media they own.”
- My thoughts: I don’t think it gets better than tech and politics. Meadows picked up on a news bite that I hadn’t caught, and I was glad to have heard it via Teleread.
“How Japanese Anime house Gonzo avoided pirating by dropping DRM” by Teleread reader, Eugene Woodbury
“The Anime Almanac reports here and here on how Japanese anime studio Gonzo beat Internet piracy by abandoning DRM. Rather, they responded quickly with a quality product at a reasonable price that was easy to download. This seems painfully obvious, but as Scott VonSchilling points out, getting media execs to grasp the obvious can be painfully difficult.”
- My thoughts:Not only does Teleread deliver DRM news and constantly stand for
BoingBoing and Craphound
These two sites are my hubs to find Cory Doctorow’s most recent posts. As the author of the infamous Microsoft DRM talk, Doctorow is known for being outspoken in his push for a DRM-Free world.
“Petition for a DRM-free Kindle” by Cory Doctorow
“For someone who professes to have all this respect for “creatives” you’re awfully quick to disparage actual working artists….as “digerati” who know nothing about the motives and markets for art — and to talk big about what artists will and won’t do, when, by your own description, you are a dilettante who doesn’t even have the artistic integrity or confidence to make his work public.”
- My thoughts: It’s Doctorow’s re-post of Holmes’s thoughts that makes this blog, it’s Doctorow’s commentary through the virulent 56 post chain of comments that follows. See 30, 33, 35, 39, and 42, though it’s best read if you get the whole build from the other comments.What is said amidst the riot is less important than the fact that there is a riot: people care about this issue and Doctorow seems to bring out that passion quite well.
Lessig
Where Doctorow is boisterous, Lessig is zen.
“Free Culture and DRM” by Lawrence Lessig
“In my view, the “free culture” test for a work is whether it is available freely — not whether it is also available not freely.”
- My thoughts: After all the BoingBoing raucous, I feel like the world is under control. Lessig has the tendency–as a blogger and a scholar (for he’s really both) to inspire hope rather than fear. I tend to find him more than reasonable, even when I don’t entirely agree.
The Gripe Line
General tech issues, and from the title, go figure. But if you want to look for people’s real issues with a product, this may be where to find them.
“In Defense of DRM” by Ed Foster
“Since we’ve been giving all forms of copyright protection a pretty hard time here lately, it seems like the only fair thing to do is give the other side a chance. And, fortunately, one reader’s response to a recent story provides a well-reasoned and articulate argument in favor of Digital Rights Management.”
- My thoughts: Most tech blogs wouldn’t dare post a blog even hinting at a soft spot for DRM. But in all honesty, DRM prevails because there are good arguments keeping it there, whether the proletariat of publishing believe is should exist or not.
