Digital Rights Management (DRM)

Im assuming a ban on DRM would apply to any consumer products.

DRM harms the consumer (see online-only DRM games such as Diablo III and the new SimCity) and is easily circumvented. It does not do its intentioned function and prevents other pieces of data (music, games, other software) that the user has from being used without the incurred expense of additional licensing fees or inane restrictions.

why can't we just make the policy
"we oppose the use of DRM"(or something similar) i don't see the need for a ban

and require all of our media be released without DRM

welcome back, sacha.

Ksc: people already hate DRM and that doesn't stop companies from using it, without a ban I find it highly unlikely that they will stop.

AJ The people who hate DRM have not proven themselves to be a large group of unified consumers, let alone a large group of voters of voters. After that happens i see things changing dramatically, no anti-DRM legislation necessary.

Without a federal criminalization of the use of DRM, companies will use that to maintain unnatural monopolies when their business models have been rendered obsolete decades ago, and they should have been bankrupted decades ago.

BL
if it only drive customers away then why do we need to ban it?

I only have so much text there for statements and that is the first thing that came to mind for DRM. If I was thinking more clearly I should have put, because it puts unnecessary constraints on the consumer....I want to type more, but I lost my train of thought, because of I kept getting distracted by the IRC.

KSC: The issue is that it will not drive away customers. A minor problem will not stop me from getting an IPod if I believe it is the best on the market. We shouldn't allow companies to bully people and still get paid because their product is just good enough to allow them to be assholes.

What if instead of a ban, we repealed the DRM act? The companies can still try their useless DRM methods, but we remove the penalties for bypassing them. We all know how annoying it is, but maybe the more important matter is the egregious fines that are levied against people.

I think I just changed my own mind on this matter.

There is just no reason to not ban it? It isn't like this will be an unpopular opinion so I don't see the need to stop halfway?

Our platform should include nothing that undermines this
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

This needs to be law
"
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
"

@gijack , I generally agree with that. But I would like to note that we shouldn't blindly follow the words of other organisations. Just because they are good guys, doesn't mean its all good stuff./
Though of course I think nearly everyone would agree with that.

DRM is not a "toothless dog". While without legislation, you cannot legally prosecuted, hard to reverse engineer machines, or anything that you cannot easily ascertain the workings of, are inherently dangerous, the same as patent medicine of last century.

Not knowing how it works, allows them to hide dangerous components, that might not be fully understood even if reversed to enough of a degree for the people to solve their immediate problem.

A full review of how a system works should be a legal right. Whitepapers need to exist for all products on the market.

I agree with GI Jack. Strict criminalization of DRM use should be part of digital rights. DRM can be very dangerous, not just infringing on users' rights and liberties.

It is not enough to depend and rely on the public's anger to keep multinational corporate monopolies on the straight and narrow. Keep in mind, these are corporate welfarists who feel they are entitled to our money and their government-enforced monopolies.

They will not repent unless forced to.

DRM is not a toothless dog. It is dangerous to users, the Internet, society and culture, and to national and international security and safety as a whole.

Sounds like that passed. Now what?

I put it on a pad of approved policy measures:
http://piratepad.net/16zA04mcGw

after we have a list of decision then we can get to how we want to write it