[recycledelectron]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

They should also be smart enough to back things up and do preventive maintenance on their systems... anyone who doesn't, has no one to blame when their systems go down and everything is lost.

DRM prevents backing up data. For example the protection in many versions of Microsoft Software prevents a backup copy of a hard disk from running on a different PC, or in a virtual machine.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

It's harder for people to appreciate how transitory a company or service can be (for some reason), but that lesson is being learned by more and more people every day. Even iTunes could disappear, if someone else develops AlphaOmegaTunes and Apple loses all of their business. Even iTunes users should prepare for that, if they want to keep their music, plain and simple.

You always refer to how the manufacturer intends us to use their software. Intending it to only be used while a license server is up, and then claiming that you can use it forever is an act of fraud. Remember when Lotus went kaput? I lost my business due to the DMCA.

I've said we have different morals. Anyone who defends any DRM scheme that involves a license server is immoral. Such as defense concludes that it's OK for a company to lock down S/W so that it can not be used after they go bust. How many of the early silent movie companies survive today? If they had to spend $10,000 per year to keep a license server running from the days of silent movies until today, if the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA had been in effect, if the term of copyrights had been 95 years, would we have ANY silent movies left? OF COURSE NOT!

DRM supporters are immoral because they are willing to throw our society away for a few bucks.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

when you say "deliberately," you're implying that they honestly didn't want the software to work for you. Isn't it more likely that they simply didn't anticipate the way you intended to use it, so their DRM couldn't take that into account? Or that they did design it that way, but in order to prevent the possibility of the SW being pirated, a perfectly legitimate concern on their part, and with no malice towards you in particular?

That's a nice straw man in the argument.

When I say "deliberately" I do not mean they had my name on a memo. I mean that they knew their product would not work on a percentage of users equipment - BECAUSE OF THE DRM - and they decided to rip us off with no hope of a refund. A legit company would allow a full refund if you sent in a pic of the TV screen not playing a DVD, with the DVD.

Selling products you know will not work part of the time, due to your deliberately inserted code, and then refusing refunds is immoral.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Granted, maybe they did know it wouldn't work, and simply neglected to give adequate warning of that, in order to see bigger sales. In most cases, however, the SW maker simply can't anticipate every system and contingency. I myself have had problems with SW that was designed to run on the "average" PC, with "average" SW installed, but with my tweaks and additional system-monitoring SW, certain things wouldn't run on mine, and I'd have to return them. Even happens with Macs. Until computers are better-designed, and SW better-programmed, those things are going to happen, and you just have to understand and accept that.

Let me repeat your words..."the SW maker simply can't anticipate every system and contingency"

As time goes on, it will be more difficult to anticipate the changes. Eventually, it is impossible.

I can get an emulator to run an old (not-DRMed) bit of software or media. People have even used optical page scanners to read old LPs.

Therefore, to limit products to only run in their approved circumstances with deliberate software locks that are illegal to bypass under the DMCA is to prevent their products from being useful.

I can read old formats with creative programs, but I can not legally bypass old digital locks.

Imagine if the old LPs were software locked, so it was a felony to play them with your freely downloaded program that reads a .TIFF from a scanner. 95 year copyrights mean that almost all audio from certain eras would be lost.

I would not have the great speeched from Churchill, JFK, and Reagan. I would have never heard the voice of Teddy Roosevelt ripping into his congressional opponents.

Of course, DRM supporters think that's OK if you make an extra $1.50.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

All I can say is, start thinking about designing and building all of your own HW/SW. That's the only way you are going to guarantee something like that.

I avoid all software locks. Any product that is software locked after I purchase it, that was not labeled as such is I treat as fraud.

I much prefer Linux and other open source software due to the freedom - and I don't mean free as in beer. I mean the freedom to run it in an emulator in the distant future.

I demand that my important computer resources be rugged and portable. I am currently moving to (only) a set of solar cells, a car charger, a few HDDs, a UMPC, and a reader. I keep TB backups cached all over Texas and neighboring states.

Someone like you or Zahi Hawass will tell a cop (like the one that destroyed my library years ago at a traffic stop) to trash my library - it might contain an unauthorized picture of the great pyramid in a history book from 1893. It might be on recordable media. I might not need all those files. There might be something in there that I don't need to be reading. Maybe my time could be better spent elsewhere.

Andy

Andy