Doodz! your Rights are Mine! (DRM)

While I am not really a huge consumer of paid media, it does irk me that more and more companies are trying to tell their customers that they do not really own the thing that they have purchased. The customers are merely "borrowing" the product via a license. Some have even tried to push their licensing scheme to unbelievable lengths. I read somewhere that merely opening the wrap on a Windows Vista box would be equivalent to agreeing to all the licensing terms that can only be read after the
software is actually installed. On top of that, you have also further agreed to any amendments that they might make to the license in the future, with no time limit. (So if they say you can't install firefox, for example, you have no other recourse.)

If I buy a media, I expect to have full control of it. Copying it for a friend might be iffy, but giving it away to a friend, and have it not work just because she's using a different device to play it is just plain silly. From the look of how this is going, the media companies might even be tying to make it against the law to even give the product away (because it is licensed to you and it is non-transferable!).

Then you have things like this:

"Universal Music CEO: iPod owners are thieves"

It is probably true that a lot of music in the 60GB iPods might not have been purchased off the net. The thing is, this is not really about the music. Not to mention that they have made it illegal to convert tracks from CD's that I already *own* (very few) into digital media.

Apparently it is not enough that the record labels get royalties on the digital music that they sell, now they want royalties for each sale of the music player device too! It is like bread companies demanding royalties from companies that make bread toasters. While Apple has not budged, Microsoft (maker of Zune) has agreed! Maybe they will go after Sony next - you know, for all the walkmans. (I did not realize this earlier, but I recently found out why blank medias can be purchased. Part of their sale goes to the record companies.)

And this:

"BestBuy: our prices are copyrighted"

Uh... so, if you're selling an apple for $1.00, I can't list it for the same price?
(You can't copyright a price list. Duh.)

I am just glad that there are still people out there who are opposing all these DRM (Digital Rights Management) and copyright abuse. I am already doing my part (by not purchasing any cripple-ware products). I just hope that the trend will improve.