FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to suppor

[James C]

FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to support Digital Restrictions Management

https://u.fsf.org/xk

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA — Wednesday, May 14th, 2014 — In response to Mozilla's announcement that it is reluctantly adopting DRM in its Firefox Web browser, Free Software Foundation executive director John Sullivan made the following statement:
"Only a week after the International Day Against DRM, Mozilla has announced that it will partner with proprietary software company Adobe to implement support for Web-based Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) in its Firefox browser, using Encrypted Media Extensions (EME).

The Free Software Foundation is deeply disappointed in Mozilla's announcement. The decision compromises important principles in order to alleviate misguided fears about loss of browser marketshare. It allies Mozilla with a company hostile to the free software movement and to Mozilla's own fundamental ideals.

Although Mozilla will not directly ship Adobe's proprietary DRM plugin, it will, as an official feature, encourage Firefox users to install the plugin from Adobe when presented with media that requests DRM. We agree with Cory Doctorow that there is no meaningful distinction between 'installing DRM' and 'installing code that installs DRM.'

[technosaurus]

fsf, meet real world.

[8-bit]

Since that agreement with Mozilla, I assume Seamonkey will go the same route as Firefox.
In the end though, one can thank the movie giants for DRM.

I remember a while back of trying to record a broadcast of the movie "The Wizard of Oz" by a local TV station.
And in the process, I learned that protection against copying can be extended to an over-the-air broadcast move.
I say this after finding that I could not view the recorded movie due to encryption.

As a test, I used the linux dd command to make an iso image of a movie and then burn the image to a DVD. It worked with that movie. But it may have not had copy protection. And since I already own that movie, I removed the copy from my hard drive and used the R/W DVD for other purposes.

[solo]

Adobe will of course bundle the DRM with Flash. They'd be fools not to.

[RSH]

fsf, meet real world.

Yes.

Has anyone in the real world ever produced/composed a song?

Has anyone ever produced/composed a collection of songs, made a collection of videos, put this all together onto a dvd, programmed the user interface and created the needed graphical images for this?

I did!

It has taken appr. 18 Months to finish and needed an amount of daily work up to 18 hours per day - six days a week!

Every little step and every little detail was done in one hand - mine.

But usually such stuff is not produced that way. Usually it is produced by big companies with millions of dollars in the background and thousands of people getting involved - doing their work to get their live somehow worth to be living.

- paying taxes to keep up infrastructure for each and everyone...
- paying for food and home to keep the family not just alive

- add more here...

Why in the hell should there be a right to own a unpaid illegal digital copy of such work as the product in the end?

If you want to use music, movies and software for free, just use what you can get for free and you are allowed to use for free- respect the work of others declared as "commercial".

Don't own illegal copies of music, movies and/or software.

You can't copy your car, you can't copy your house and -I assume- you would even not make a copy of your wife or girlfriend to upload her to the web to share her with your online-friends...

RSH

[bark_bark_bark]

DRM does nothing to prevent "copyright infringement". DRM is something that should die. And BTW, some things (like p***) shouldn't be copyrightable.

[solo]

If somebody believes I stole something that belongs to them, they can go to the police, and the police can get a search warrant, and with that search warrant they can then go to my house and rummage through it to see whether I actually stole something.

What they are not allowed to do, is to install a camera in every room just in case there's a possibility that I might steal something in the future, and then when the cameras register something that looks like it might be stolen, come in with a hammer and trash it.

I know pirating is not allowed. I installed XBMC quite recently and discovered Icefilms and at first I lulled myself into thinking that hey, it's streaming, not downloading, so it's probably okay. But after a few Game of Thrones episodes it kinds dawned on me that what I was doing was not legal. The thing is though, for the Average Joe, that is not apparant at all. XBMC happily sports these add-ons, XBMCHub proudly announces another nice add-on which you can install at the flick of a button. And it's all a smooth ride. People buy those cute little Android sticks, Popcorn Hour, and they're not doing that because they want to set up a nice library of family photos.
We're not talking about criminals. We're talking about the old lady around the block watching Golden Girls and Matlock from a torrent. I bet at least half of those people are ignorant to the legal status of those actions.

Anyway, I decided not to use these XBMC add-ons. Not because I felt so terribly guilty about it, but I felt I was creating an unwanted dependency.

Just so that I am able to make the proper decisions for myself when the time comes.

[bark_bark_bark]

If somebody believes I stole something that belongs to them, they can go to the police, and the police can get a search warrant, and with that search warrant they can then go to my house and rummage through it to see whether I actually stole something.

What they are not allowed to do, is to install a camera in every room just in case there's a possibility that I might steal something in the future, and then when the cameras register something that looks like it might be stolen, come in with a hammer and trash it.

I know pirating is not allowed. I installed XBMC quite recently and discovered Icefilms and at first I lulled myself into thinking that hey, it's streaming, not downloading, so it's probably okay. But after a few Game of Thrones episodes it kinds dawned on me that what I was doing was not legal. The thing is though, for the Average Joe, that is not apparant at all. XBMC happily sports these add-ons, XBMCHub proudly announces another nice add-on which you can install at the flick of a button. And it's all a smooth ride. People buy those cute little Android sticks, Popcorn Hour, and they're not doing that because they want to set up a nice library of family photos.
We're not talking about criminals. We're talking about the old lady around the block watching Golden Girls and Matlock from a torrent. I bet at least half of those people are ignorant to the legal status of those actions.

Anyway, I decided not to use these XBMC add-ons. Not because I felt so terribly guilty about it, but I felt I was creating an unwanted dependency.

Just so that I am able to make the proper decisions for myself when the time comes.

One of the reasons I support "pirates", is because Hollywood as way too much power. Another thing is that they don't get that things are way overpriced. I wouldn't mind paying for movies, but it has to be priced and distributed reasonably. And by law, i should be able to make backups, but DRM is (unlawfully) preventing me from doing that. I bought the damn disc, I have the right to back it up and watch it another device.

Hollywood and its copyright cartels are living in the stone age, this is the 21st century and they need to enter it. Users should have the control of how and when they watch movies, not corrupt billionaires.

[cthisbear]

In Australia I looked around for a dvd of Medicine Man for a friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_Man_(film)

Understandably with an unknown actor like Sean Connery,
it was impossible to buy a legal copy.

Of course I told my mate...no can do.
It only came out in 1992...20 years ago at that time.

I mean...you know me here....let's be responsible eh!

Don't get tempted to download a torrent.....ahem!

"""""""""""

As an aside try to get a dvd of Tugs....a wonderful kids show.
All these clowns have no sympathy with me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tugs_(TV_series)

" DVD
TUGS has never commercially available for DVD, although David Mitton had intentions to buy back the rights to the series to commission the series to DVD, along with a campaign by fans, primarily due to the aging VHS tapes becoming more scarce and the TUGS fanbase increasing thanks to the internet.

But after Mitton's passing in 2008, it didn't go any further and the series itself remains only on VHS.
Before that however, DVD quality footage from the show surfaced in
2005 as part of an episode of Salty's Lighthouse on the UK DVD
Toddler Time. "

""""""""""

Sorry....links won't work with >> url

Chris.

[bark_bark_bark]

In Australia I looked around for a dvd of Medicine Man for a friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_Man_(film)

Understandably with an unknown actor like Sean Connery,
it was impossible to buy a legal copy...

That another thing too, in many countries you can't get a lot of movies through legal means. You have to download a copy "illegally". So spreading culture is another motive for "piracy". The other big motive for "piracy" is spreading free speech.

[darkcity]

We need ways of paying producers of cultural work without going via corporations, crowd funding is one such method. These corps have ripped off artists as well as consumers. If the artist isn't selling enough, or doesn't behave, they can just refuse to publish and not keep old works available. This is true for all but the biggest artists who are well known enough to dictate a fair deal.

The FSF doesn't like DRM because (as far as I know) no DRM system has been created that is open source. Which means you don't know what else is being 'bungled' with that code.

Maybe a bitcoin style blockchain system could be used to implement an open source DRM?

[darry1966]

I don't know about other countries but in NZ - torrents are looked upon as being associated with pirate movie downloads, without the realization that it is such a great way to download genuine files, Linux iso's etc.

[ardvark]

One of the reasons I support "pirates", is because Hollywood as way too much power. Another thing is that they don't get that things are way overpriced. I wouldn't mind paying for movies, but it has to be priced and distributed reasonably. And by law, i should be able to make backups, but DRM is (unlawfully) preventing me from doing that. I bought the damn disc, I have the right to back it up and watch it another device.

Hollywood and its copyright cartels are living in the stone age, this is the 21st century and they need to enter it. Users should have the control of how and when they watch movies, not corrupt billionaires.

Hi...

I would have to disagree with you here (except on one point.) Stealing is stealing and in this case two wrongs don't make a right. Hollywood producers have the right to sell their content on their terms (and to make a profit) and we as individuals have the right to refuse to accept those terms by refusing to purchase their products.

I don't like DRM but I understand the reasoning behind it. Any changes to the law, the DMCA, need to made at the federal level (for those of us in the United States,)

The point I do agree with you on is that there should be a law that specifically allows one (1) personal backup copy of every DVD movie, software and music file (as well as CD and audio tape) that a person purchases, as long as the person is not creating it to give or sell to others. I think that's reasonable.

Regards...

[cthisbear]

" Stealing is stealing "

Yes! when Hollywood, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe just for starters,
rip off Aussie consumers with different rates than you pay in the U.S.

Well...never enough Billy Connolly for them.

Chris.

[bark_bark_bark]

Intellectual Property is not real property. Well theoretically copyright is "real", if you're like me who thinks copyright is a tool for governments to engage in mass censorship. Just look at the UK if you don't believe me.

[greengeek]

Hollywood producers have the right to sell their content on their terms (and to make a profit) and we as individuals have the right to refuse to accept those terms by refusing to purchase their products.

I agree. Everyone who produces digital content should have the right to "password protect" that content and limit it's use to whoever they want.

If the action being taken by Mozilla allows the browser to advise the user that a restricted content is requesting a DRM plugin then I see that as being fine - the user gets the choice of whether or not to proceed.

In fact such a system could be very beneficial to people like us - what if you made a youtube video that was so good that people were prepared to pay a few cents to view it. You could use DRM or similar to control the usage. Of course the creator of that content would have the right to decide if they wanted it to be 'free content' or 'restricted content' or 'paid content'.

If you made it - you should control it. (as long as you are not violating software licences like Google does with Android or violating contract law as music companies did by convincing us that CDs were indestructible and would last forever)

This could work in reverse too - imagine if you could prevent companies pushing advertising to you down the broadband line you pay big $ for. How many adverts does google and youtube force upon you without offering any compensation for the bandwidth they have effectively stolen from you?

[bark_bark_bark]

Once you pay the (high) price of $20 for a dvd, you OWN it, The copyright cartels has no right to tell you what you can and can't do with the dvd.

[greengeek]

Once you pay the (high) price of $20 for a dvd, you OWN it, The copyright cartels has no right to tell you what you can and can't do with the dvd.

I agree with that too - but I feel the transaction of purchasing a DVD needs to have a better "contract negotiation" around it.

At the moment the cartel "assumes" a contract that is in their favour - ie: they believe they can tell you how to use or not use the DVD. However - the viewpoint of the cartel is not the same as the viewpoint of the purchaser. If there was an actual 'contract discussion' at the moment of sale I think the cartel would have to wake up very quickly as most users would tell them 'get stuffed! - if you want to put those restrictions on it I'm not buying it!"