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Anti-DRM March on Apple

Demonstrations underway in at least seven US cities.


On Saturday 10 June the Free Software Foundation and 'Defective By Design' plan to demonstrate outside at least seven Apple stores in the US. They're protesting the increasing DRM control Apple are putting on their downloads.

Clearly opinion is growing that the whole ??AA thing is getting out of hand. 'A teenage girl making a mix tape for a boy she has a crush on could become a target for an expensive lawsuit in the future', says Ted Teah of Defective By Design.

And Apple's classic response that they have to do this or risk being closed down by the ??AA doesn't hold, according to Cory Doctorow.

'Who's the customer here, me or SonyBMG? And honestly, there may be some powerful bozon emitters in the halls of the RIAA companies, but does anyone really believe the record industry will just take its ball and go home at this point? Sorry, we're no longer making music available for the iPod anymore because Apple has refused to break your personal stereo to our specifications. Riiiight', writes the editor of Boing-Boing, himself an Apple computer and iPod owner.

'What's the lesson here? Well, Apple are not on your side, even if you're an Apple customer. If you buy into a proprietary platform where the music industry get a veto, you're scr0d. Every time you buy an iPod, you are financing legal and technical countermeasures aimed at taking away legitimate features that enable you to do more with your lawfully acquired music and hardware.'

Doctorow's been on Apple's case for several years, doing what he can to counteract the Cupertino company's 'tricks'. He followed the Apple hunt for iPod Download, an iTunes plugin that circumvented Apple's DRM schemes. Apple threatened the program author's ISP and the product was removed.

And he's been giving people good advice ever since.

The Meeting Places

At least the following Apple stores have demonstrations planned for 10 June.

  • 1 Stockton St San Francisco CA 94108
  • 679 N Michigan Ave Chicago IL 60611
  • 4702 NE University Village Pl Seattle WA 98105
  • 100 Cambridge Side Place Cambridge MA 02141
  • 767 Fifth Ave New York NY 10153
  • 160 Walt Whitman Rd Huntington Station NY 11746
  • 6121 West Park Blvd Plano TX 75093

Also pretending to the list is the Apple store at University Village in Seattle.

MaximumPC plan to be on hand at the San Francisco Apple store with printouts explaining why DRM sucks and with copies of their April issue which tells people how they can strip DRM from all their media - CDs, DVDs, downloads, et al.

Be there or be dead.

See Also
Business Week: A Growing Racket Over iTunes

Open Pod
iPod Download
DefectiveByDesign.org
iTunes iPodDownload plugin
HOW-TO: Get music OFF your iPod
Use iPod Download with iTunes 4.7
More on Apple's breaking of the iPod
Apple to iPod Owners: Eat shit and die
iTunes 4.7 disables 'iPod Download' application
Apple force feed customers shit, call it sunshine
iPod Download can work again if you fix what Apple broke
Anti-iTunes DRM demonstrations across the USA tomorrow

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