“Defective by Design (DBD) is planning a protest at many U.S. Apple Stores Saturday, June 10th at 10:30am. Their protest is against Apple’s DRM which makes it possible to purchase music legally via iTunes and listen to it on your iPod and up to 5 computers,” iMacazine reports. “DBD has made similar protests against other forms of ‘Digital Restrictions.’ During their protests they show up in yellow Hazmat suits and inform passers-by of their cause. According to the DBD site targeted cities include San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Long Island, and New York.”
Defective by Design’s Gregory Heller writes:
Two weeks ago we launched DefectiveByDesign.org – the Campaign to Eliminate DRM – since then, more than 2000 technologists have joined us and taken the pledge to stop DRM through direct action. Now we are taking the campaign to a national stage in an effort to increase discussion of DRM. This Saturday, June 10 at 10:30am (local time) Flash Mobs will gather in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Long Island and New York converging on Apple stores to warn customers of the dangers of DRM in the iPod and iTunes.
Apple claims that people would steal from them if they didn’t use DRM, and that they have to protect themselves. This is how they would like to portray it, but it’s not how it is. Inclusion of DRM in products sold by Apple and other companies is inspired by their greed and desire to control us. To accomplish their goals, they want to monitor, report, and regulate your every interaction with your computer and electronics.
All music purchased from the iTunes music store has DRM in it. That means, at the moment, you can only have a certain number of copies. It used to be you could have 10, then Apple changed it to 7. Nothing stops them from changing it again, to 5, or 3 or 1. With DRM Apple can change the rules AGAIN, and at any time. DRM gives them that power over you. Your devices will have to do their bidding. That is what DRM is about, taking the control away from you, and giving it to Big Media and companies like Apple. The hardware and software they sell you will enforce their rules, by removing your rights. As the largest distributor of DRM infected technology, Apple has set a new low in the mistreatment of our freedoms.
Take back your technology. Say no to DRM in your computer, in your home, and in your pocket.
More info here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Defective by Design” sounds like the perfect name for this group and, as an added bonus, also splendidly describes Heller’s prose. An aptly-titled “twofer,” if you will. You don’t like DRM? Then dress up in your yellow suits and hats and protest outside the headquarters of the “Big Four” music labels: Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Group. They’re the ones responsible for DRM and for treating their customers like criminals, not Apple. While DBD are obviously shooting for maximum publicity by going after Apple, that still does not excuse their misguided aim. Protesting against DRM at Apple retail stores is like protesting against federal gasoline taxes at the corner gas station when you should be marching in Washington: wrong target and wrong venue, “Defective by Design.”
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Hey DBD,
Make sure Microsoft and it’s PlaysForSure DRM is on your hit list too! You need to have some FairPlay in your campaign
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“I could definitely buy a case of tomatoes and leave em outside in the sun till their protest. Have a nice little greeting ready and waiting.”
I think we can take ’em. And we don’t need to dress alike and follow each other around. We can also tell them that their spaceship is waiting at the appointed location. An offer them new sneakers for the ride.
quote – To accomplish their goals, they want to monitor, report, and regulate your every interaction with your computer and electronics.
Hey defective design, get over your self. Nobody cares that you listen to Barry Manilow, except maybe Barry Manilow.
Pardon me for being steamed, but with everything else that’s going wrong with this country, they waste their time on DRM? It’s entertainment, you idiots! Don’t like it? Do something else! Take a walk, read a book, kiss a girl, anything!
For fsck’s sake, the country and world are going to hell in a handbasket! There are many vitally important issues worth protesting or demonstrating for! (I won’t go into them here to avoid starting a political flamewar.) And what gets these morons out the door? MUSIC?!?!
What a pompous bunch of needy self-centered little twits. I wish they were demonstrating in my city. I’d love to give them a piece of my mind.
DBD should be thanking Apple for keeping music at 99 cents a song and helping the once struggling music industry from the depths of peril!
I agree with others, this needs to be directed at the music labels and not at Apple Computer. It’s not Apple’s original idea. To do this to Apple just to gain attention tot he cause is unjust and unfair.
I hope there will be a good number of Mac faithful on hand to defend Apple.
Maybe it all starts with the artists. With todays technology, bands can get themselves on to the web with videos, musc and downloads.
Apple should offer some sort of contract with bands that want to sell their music themselves outside of the labels. Maybe a ‘new bands’ area of iTunes.
Its too bad that labels have as much power they have and how little consumers can do about it; except boycotting ALL music purchases for about a year and have bands sell their own music off their own websites.
The right to protest is important and dear. But does anyone pay attention to how protests may be most effective– ever?
Smart, interesting, and cutting versus common, typical, and quasi-whining? Protesting has the same effect as car alarms lately– so common (and alike), no one pays attention hardly at all.
If you’re going to make a point, make one. Don’t borrow from the same old formula: complaint.
Thank you LordRobin, for calling it like it is. You da man.
I think defective also describes people who are unwilling or mentally incapable of taking 5 freakin seconds and learn how to burn a CD, thus removing the DRM.
So it’s been APPLE following me around in those black helicopters all this time!
I thought it was the C.I.A. before!
NOW I’M ASCARED!!!
“So it’s been APPLE following me around in those black helicopters all this time!”
Um, I’m pretty sure they were Aqua colored copters. They were rainbow colored years ago.
Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd, and there is no such thing as bad publicity.
@Ampar – “We can also tell them that their spaceship is waiting at the appointed location. An offer them new sneakers for the ride.“
Marshall Applewhite send his utmost thanks from the Hale-Bopp comet.
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PETA would rather kill human beings than allow anyone to hurt an animal.
Now thats a group DBD can espouse to become.
^^^sends
flyermoney:
I just checked out the site you mentioned. They have no popular music at all.
Do you think that anyone, including Apple, could have bargained a less restrictive arrangement than iTunes offers for popular music?
But if this flash mob was protesting, say Microsoft, the flash mob would be the greatest idea since the iPod.
During their protests they show up in yellow Hazmat suits and inform passers-by of their cause.
Maybe I’ll show up and inform THEM I’m there to do business with Apple, and they should get outta the way.
Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, but good grief. Can’t they find anything better to protest?
if you don’t like it, don’t spend your money on it. problem solved.
i wonder how many dvd movies these people buy? what’s the difference between a movie and an mp3 with DRM?
i hope they plan on protesting the movie companies too.
DRM is bad. It is destroying fair use. It is invading our privacy. A little of it dressed up pretty with good design doesn’t make it ok.
I love apple products, and I used to like the culture, but Apple seems to be going far with restrictive practices.
They just got slapped by the courts for attempting to force bloggers to reveal sources. If they had won, they would have seriously damaged the rights of online journalists for years to come, all because someone leaked some proprietary information and Apple thought they were big enough to strongarm the little guys.
Just because it’s cheap doesn’t make it right to change the rules whenever they want. We should have fair use rights and Apple shouldn’t take them away, even if they are taking less away than the studios.
Jobs should stand up and be a good American and protect our rights to fair use and free press.
But if this flash mob was protesting, say Microsoft, the flash mob would be the greatest idea since the iPod.
Hardly. I’d rank them among the clowns who camp outside a new Apple Store, waiting for the grand opening.
Never mind the fact it’s too dangerous to line up outside MS. Flying chairs and all, you know…
http://www.civicactions.com/?q=team/gregoryheller
Whatta maroon!
They’re also the luvvy-duvvy anti-war lobbyists remember..and about as clued up on the real world and its threats as coco the clown.
All the music in the world along with millions works of art do not belong to anyone, but the God. Make music free, you greedy egoists!