Today, Sunday 9th July, is the Day against DRM.
DRM is the software that comes bolted to your digital media and computerised devices and tries to police your behaviour. The major media companies are its masters, and they justify it as a necessary evil to prevent file sharing.
However, it does more than that and also does worse than that: DRM gives its owners power over our cars, medical devices, phones, computers and more; in addition, it opens a deep crack in our digital rights and freedoms – a crack will only get wider and more dangerous as our societies continue to interweave with technology.
I support the global campaign led by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to raise the awareness of issues related to the so-called Digital Rights Management software. As any other proprietary technology, DRM is killing user freedom of choice and should therefore always be avoided.
For more details, see Defective by Design’s dedicated Day Against DRM page.