Groups consisting of concerned technologists & consumers distributed leaflets during lunch breaks & rush hours in various cities.
Groups consisting of concerned technologists & consumers distributed leaflets during lunch breaks & rush hours in various European & American cities like Zurich, Paris, London & Boston along with web campaign to increase awareness.
Some brochures showed figures similar to advertising campaigns of Apple with tied hands with iPod's earphone cords representing restrictions for customers who can only play songs on iPod players unlike CD music that can be played on all players.
Peter Brown, FSF (Free Software Foundation) Executive Director made it clear that this war is not intended against apple. The reason for concentrating on iPod is only because it is popularizing DRM's acceptance.
DRM is software used by firms to protect copying of their digital content sold in Internet music stores and storage media like Blu-ray DVD. DRM signifies that customers can't make copies of music, documents & movies they buy legally and has led protestors dubbing it as 'Digital Restrictions Management.'
"Growth of DRM largely depends upon the balance between fair compensation for the creators of digital content and the rights of end-users to access and use the information they need. Lack of common standards remains a problem that must be overcome if DRM is to serve the industry on a mass scale," analyzes the report "Digital Rights Management: Opportunities (2006)" published by RNCOS.
FSF claims that existing rules will get tighter with time. Brown said Apple's DRM technology is comparatively less strict but Amazon's Unbox & WMP (Windows Media Player) 11 EULA (End User License Agreement) are pretty strict and impose a lot of restrictions. He said more competition for accessing media among technology firms could see these rules getting even tougher.
However, Apple & other media firms have emphasized that DRM's absence would open doors for piracy & would also put the future of online music stores at risk.
There's another bad news for media firms. FSF is planning to launch a site drm.info dedicated to highlight dangers in using DRM.
Related Market Research Reports:
DRM Market Analysis - Future Directions
Global Portable Electronics Market
Chinese Consumer Electronics Market till 2011
