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FSF US takes street to protest Vista DRM

At Seattle's WinHEC conference yesterday, activists of the Free Software Foundations "Defective by Design"-campaign informed attendees about the dangers of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), just as Bill Gates was about to give a keynote speech on the new Windows Vista's DRM features and Microsoft's future.

From FSF's article about the campaign: 

"In any other industry, such limitations or invasions would be
considered major flaws. A media player that restricts what you can play
is like a car that you won't let you steer," said Brown. "Products
containing DRM are defective -- only, unlike other products, these
defects are deliberately created by an industry that has long stopped
caring about us."

The protesters wore bright-yellow suits for dealing with hazardous material, conveying the message that DRM pollutes personal computers and turns them into a danger to their users.

Photos are available on flickr. 

via BoingBoing

BSA lies its way through "Global Piracy Study"

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has published the latest edition of its "Global Piracy Study". Here it claims that proprietary software makers have lost US$ 1.8 bn due to piracy in the UK alone last year.

This is bunk, and they know it, as The Register notes:

It's hard to say how many instances of pirated software represent 
actual lost sales at full retail price. The distinction between the
"retail value of pirated software" and "sales lost to piracy" is not
addressed in the BSA's survey. This point is worth noting because the
BSA uses headline figures on software piracy in the course of its
lobbying efforts.

Of course figures like this make good headlines, but don't they believe over at the BSA that the consistent use of faulty methodology may harm their credibility?

But then, there never was much to be harmed in the first place, was there.


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