French Government Lobbied to Ban Free Software

Ben Finney ben at benfinney.id.au
Fri Dec 2 15:34:47 UTC 2005


On 02-Dec-2005, Alex Hudson wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-12-01 at 10:29 +0000, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
> > Imagine you use Firefox to download a DRM'ed Windows Media Video
> > file. Firefox would have to respect the copy prohibition embedded
> > in that .WMV file, if it doesn't, it would be illegal to use it.
> > 
> > Now imagine Firefox DOES respect the copy prohibition. Since
> > Firefox is Free Software, it can be modified so it WON'T respect
> > the prohibition. As such, it would be illegal to use it.
> 
> I must be being stupid, because I still can't see the practical
> problem - my Firefox/media player/whatever already does respect DRM,
> in so far as I can't access DRM'd media (as far as I know), and the
> EUCD has already made it an offence to bypass DRM mechanisms. 

You're not being stupid, but you're victim to a confusion the media
consortium would love to propagate.

The "respect the copy prohibition" refers to a *legal* restriction,
not a technical one. That is, a device or program that "respects" such
a prohibition would be obeying the law (and ignoring the user), rather
than being technically restricted by the medium.

In other words, "DRM'ed media" is media that somehow *indicates* what
actions are permitted or prohibited. Software that "respects" the DRM
will duly obey the indications of what is permitted, disregarding what
the user wishes to do.

Think of the "may only read X times" or "may not print" or "may not be
read aloud" flags in (some misguided vendors') e-books. Those are
indications only; if they are to be effective, they must be enforced
by the device that accesses them.

In this wise, the lobbyists for "if we don't license it, it's illegal"
demand a world where devices that permit breaching the license are
themselves illegal -- where the legal assertion of license
restrictions are synonymous with the technical impossibility of
breaching the license, with *any* legal device.

Thus, any device that does not betray the wishes of its user, by
obeying the signals in the media regardless of the device's apparent
capabilities, is to become illegal under such a regime.

Since free software obeys the wishes of those who customise it to
their wishes, and does not attempt to obey the wishes of the media
consortium, the vision explained above is mutually exclusive to free
software. One or the other must be eradicated.

-- 
 \       "[On the Internet,] power and control will shift to those who |
  `\       are actually contributing something useful rather than just |
_o__)                                 having lunch."  -- Douglas Adams |
Ben Finney <ben at benfinney.id.au>
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