Monday, June 05, 2006

DRM in the news

The BBC has a certain journalistic style where they make everything sound reasonable, and always offer both sides of the story (read their global warming reports). Here they comment on the new report on DRM by the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG). The report to be released later today, apparently contains praise towards some limited use for DRM, but also strongly criticises rootkit-like technologies, telling the industry that they could be subject to criminal liability for the use of such technical protection measures.

It seems that one of the main solutions proposed is to have some form of labeling of digital media which will let consumers know what they can do with their works. Why? Because people are ripping their CDs and placing them in their iPods, which is certainly an infringement under current UK law because there is no right to make private copies.

I'm giving up and buying an iPod this week. Any recommendations?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't buy an iPod they are overpriced and underspecified. Sure there's an add on ecosysytem which is useful in many circumstances but iPods don't do FM or sound recording without pricey add-ons and have limited format handling.
I bought a Creative Vision:m not perfect but still pretty handy. You may want to check out iRiver who also do some nice machines.

Andres Guadamuz said...

Thanks for the tips, John and geeklawyer.

I'm afraid that I'm now the (somehow) proud owner of a shiny black 60GB iPod, although I'm afraid that it will affect my geek rating. Hopefully my geek credentials are intact: I have Linux installed in my laptop and a Linux server next to my Windows gaming machine.