Copyleft: the magazine

Bringing together activists from across a wide spectrum of left-leaning causes, the Free Software Foundation has launched an open letter to the world condemning Microsoft Vista as not only socially irresponsible, but environmentally dangerous. Yes, the FSF and its not-so-militant wing DefectiveByDesign.org recruited a host of environmental organizations including the Friends of the Earth International and the Green Party of the UK because, as the letter puts it:

“… the Green Party and Greenpeace issued warnings about the tremendous threat posed to the environment by the disposable computer mentality promoted in Microsoft’s $500-million Windows Vista marketing campaign. Vista’s steep hardware requirements mean that to use it, most people will have to throw their current computer into a landfill and buy a new one.”

Further, they argue that Microsoft’s DRM associated with Vista blocks your legal rights to make copies of your own media files and publicly available information. This, they suggest, is in direct opposition to the work of grassroots activists and environmental organizations that both depend on the free flow of information and are so often opposed to mechanisms of control like Vista.
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Earlier this month, the Linux community was saved from a major headache by as a federal court ruled that Novell, not SCO Group, owns the copyright to Unix. Which means that Novell can keep right on not suing anyone over the use of Unix or Linux and the open source community can keep doing its thing without fear of SCO suing them. Of course, there’s still that little matter of Microsoft’s claims to hold over Linux (last quote we heard the pulled out of thin air was 235 patents). But that is another legal fight for another day. Let’s just hope Microsoft doesn’t decide now is a good time to press any claims on those supposed patents. For now, rejoice Linux users, Novell is (for this month) thy savior.

(via PC World)

In the world of digital music, it appears that hell has just frozen over. Right on the heels of the recent announcement by Universal Music that it would offer much of its catalog without digital rights management for the next few months, Wal-Mart (of all places) began offering DRM-free tracks by the music giant and fellow major label EMI for and iTunes beating 94 cents a song. Yes, you read that correctly. The worlds largest retailer has, in one price dropping instant, changed the music buying landscape to one where DRM-free music is both affordable and readily available. Not only are DRM-free tracks now widely for purchase without a subscription, but they are also cheaper than the industry standard 99 cents per song. Oh, and just for the record, for the last three days, the top downloaded song of the week at Wal-Mart was DRM-free “Big Girls Don’t Cry” by Fergie for $0.94. If we weren’t appalled by many of Wal-Mart’s other social or business practices, we’d be right there with the rest of America. Instead, we’re holding out to see what Amazon.com’s music store has to offer…

(via Reuters and Wal-Mart)

The British Parliament, going against the suggestions of its own Culture, Media and Sport committee’s recommendations and the desperate pleadings of the music industry, has decided to keep in place its 50-year cap on copyright. British MPs had originally been considering extending the term to 95 years, ostensibly to bring it in line with American copyright law. Assuming nothing changes in the next five years or so, this means that early rock-era music by the likes of the Beatles could start entering the public domain as early as 2012.

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Universal Music has committed trying out DRM-free music sales through January 2008 at such disparate music stores as Amazon.com, RealNetworks, BestBuy.com, Passalong Networks, Google, and Wal-Mart’s online music service. Additionally, Universal will be selling DRM-free tracks on its individual artist and label sites. Notice a name missing from that list? Yep, Universal gave a metaphorical finger to Apple’s iTunes, claiming that they don’t want to be held back by Apple’s iPod-centric site.

This is spectacular news for those that have long advocated abandoning digital rights management and moving toward a more reasonable music market. However, Copyleft: the magazine is only cautiously optimistic, as the success of Universal’s experiment will depend on how well it does during the crucial holiday season (it’s no coincidence that Universal has only committed to its experiment until January). It’s too early to say for sure, but this could be the beginning of a major shift in how we get music to a freer, fairer system.

(via the New York Times and Universal Music)

Finally bowing to the inevitable, NBC has decided to freely “license” its coverage of the presidential debates for non-commercial use of coverage from this past week’s AFL-CIO Forum. The rules, according to network, go something like this: as long as you credit MSNBC and don’t show any clips of NBC personalities, you have NBC’s blessing to republish clips of the debates on non-commercial websites. NBC even made a special exemption for us blogger types, officially declaring, “The inclusion of text or search ads such as Google Ad Sense, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft AdCenter, or similar services, shall not be considered a Commercial Use.” How sweet, given that most journalism scholars (and nearly every blogger on the planet) would argue that the < a href="index.php?s=fair+use">fair use principle means that we, as journalists, could use, comment on and republish clips anyway withouth NBC’s go ahead. But, as with CNN and ABC’s announcements, this is a good sign that NBC is willing to accept that all journalists have as much right to report on the debates as it does.

(via Ars Technica and MSNBC)

Microsoft announced this week that Nokia has plans to integrate its PlayReady mobile DRM platform into some of its mobile phones. PlayReady is a newer DRM system that Microsoft launch back in February which is designed to be more flexible than previous systems (like PlaysForSure), but still give service provider control over how individual files are copied. The idea is that PlayReady will be platform and file-type independent, so will encumber music, video, image and program files regardless of whether they are transfered to a phone, PC or any other device. Users have to register their devices in a “domain”, which sets up a centralized security key that unlocks the file for use on acceptable (to the service provider) devices.

In many ways, this is a one step forward, two steps back type of proposal. Nokia and Microsoft will be giving consumers more flexibility in using their DRMed files than in the past, but are also setting up a system whereby the digital rights management software can worm its way into any convergent device. We’ll keep you posted as more people start picking up PlayReady and Nokia tells us exactly what it wants to do with the system.

(via Microsoft)