DRM hopefully to be fixed in Portugal

DRM bills being discussed, with a physical DRM'd book
sent by ANSOL serving as an argument

2001's European Directive 2001/29/EC says that member states must legally protect DRM measures, making it illegal to circunvent them. But it also states that they must ensure that it doesn't prevent uses permitted thanks to copyright exceptions (for instance private copy).

The transposition of that directive to the Portuguese Law (CDADC) was made in 2004, but the way that CDADC ensures that copyright exceptions is protected doesn't work. CDADC states that you can't circunvent DRM, but since you must be able to exercise the copyright exceptions, it states that in those cases you have to request the means to achieve your objective to IGAC (a state administration service). The problem is that if you request those means to IGAC, they won't hand them over to you because they don't have it.

Well, that is now going to change. Two Portuguese parties submitted to the Parliament a couple of bills with the same basic objective: to change CDADC, changing the way the law ensures the right to copyright exceptions by simply stating that if the DRM in question prevents any of those exceptions from being exercised, then you can circunvent them in order to exercise them. Simple and effective, right?
These two bills were debated in the parliament, and then approved in generality. Now they follow it's natural path, to a comission that will merge both bills and do amendments (amendments that will not change the essence of the bills, I hope), and the final text will be again voted in the Parliament, who can turn it into Law, finally giving back users the rights that were taken from them nine years ago.

Timeline:

2001 - 2011/29/EC EU directive is published

2004 - EU directive is transposed to Portuguese Law

2013-06-12 - general discussion about two bills aiming to fix the Law

2013-06-14 - both bills approved in general

2013-06-26 (10:00) - Comission meeting scheduled to discussion and vote of both bills in speciality

The worst blind man

Completely ridiculous, insane. "DRM" gives people thoughts of bad things, it has a bad connotation. But if you stop and think on "why?" you'll easilly see that it is because DRM is bad for consumers, so it's preety simple to understand that they don't like DRM...

A way to try to circunvent that is to sell DRM with another name - Microsoft pioneered it when, with other companies, decided to create the Trusted Computing Group, and the definition of "Trusted Computing": DRM with a a preetier name. For someone that doesn't know what it is, the name inspires to be something cool, right?

Now, it seems that history is repeating itself, and HBO's Zitter says that the problem with DRM is its name, so its issues would be solved if DRM changed its name to "DCE" (Digital Consumer Enablement): same shit, different smell.

What he fails to understand is that, even if people buy loads of smelly shit just because they don't know how does the thing they're buying suck, eventually they will know, and it will happen all over again. If you don't want to have your consumers being mad at you, stop trying to put shit into their mouths.

The worst blind man is the one who doesn't want to see.

Quickies

We7 is a music sharing website where you can get DRM-free music for free and artists still get payed. The trick? A small add in the beginning of each mp3 file.

See what you can do to try to convince Warner Music to drop DRM.

Article about Security Concerns in Web 2.0.

Petition against DRM'd music

One metal magazine out of Sweden has set up a petition against DRM watermarks in music, showing yet another music side of the market - the reviewers.

The entire concept of DRM is inherently broken. It simply doesn't work. The only people that suffer ill-effects from these techniques are those who actually obey the law and aren't committing any wrongful acts. The internet pirates laugh at it and aren't noticably put off by it. DRM is only punishing the people buying and reviewing the records and thus is completely pointless and needs to stop!

Read their full position here, and don't forget to sign.

Petition for Steve Jobs

Last month, Steve Jobs told the world that he thought DRM was dumb and pointless. He pledged to ditch it on the iTunes Music Store, if only the 4 major music labels would let him. He told us that it was up to the consumers to take action, and that there was nothing he could do, his hands were tied, so to speak. Since then the internet has been abuzz with all kinds of theories and ideas about what Jobs was thinking, and the things he could do to show his commitment.

DefectiveByDesign have drafted an open letter to Steve Jobs asking him to take action and show us that his DRM diatribe represents a pledge that he'll make good on, and not just a prank to divert attention and criticism from Apple.

Visit DefectiveByDesign now to sign the letter and see the countdown to April 1, the deadline by which we have asked Jobs to demonstrate his commitment, otherwise we'll know that his posturing is just an attempt to play us the fool.