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opposing-drm.html (9808B)

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 <title>Opposing Digital Rights Mismanagement
 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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 <h2>Opposing Digital Rights Mismanagement<br />
 <span style="font-size: .7em">(Or Digital Restrictions Management, as we now call it)</span></h2>
 
 <address class="byline">by <a href="https://www.stallman.org/">Richard
 Stallman</a></address>
 
 <p>In 1989, in a very different world, I wrote the first version of the GNU
 General Public License, a license that gives computer users freedom. The
 GNU GPL, of all the free software licenses, is the one that most fully
 embodies the values and aims of the free software movement, by ensuring
 the four fundamental freedoms for every user. These are freedoms to 0)
 run the program as you wish; 1) study the source code and change it to
 do what you wish; 2) make and distribute copies, when you wish; 3) and
 distribute modified versions, when you wish.
 </p>
 <p>
 Any license that grants these freedoms is a free software license. The
 GNU GPL goes further: it protects these freedoms for all users of all
 versions of the program by forbidding middlemen from stripping them off.
 Most components of the GNU/Linux operating system, including the Linux
 component that was made free software in 1992, are licensed under GPL
 version 2, released in 1991. Now, with legal advice from Professor Eben
 Moglen, I am designing version 3 of the GNU GPL.
 </p>
 <p>
 GPLv3 must cope with threats to freedom that we did not imagine in
 1989.  The coming generation of computers, and many products with
 increasingly powerful embedded computers, are being turned against us
 by their manufacturers before we buy them&mdash;they are designed to
 restrict what we can use them to do.
 </p>
 
 <div class="announcement comment" role="complementary"><p>
 <a href="https://www.defectivebydesign.org">Join our campaign against DRM</a>.
 </p></div>
 
 <p>
 First, there was the TiVo. People may think of it as an appliance to
 record TV programs, but it contains a real computer running a GNU/Linux
 system. As required by the GPL, you can get the source code for the
 system. You can change the code, recompile and install it. But once you
 install a changed version, the TiVo won't run at all, because of a
 special mechanism designed to sabotage you. Freedom No. 1, the freedom
 to change the software to do what you wish, has become a sham.
 </p>
 <p>
 Then came Treacherous Computing, promoted as &ldquo;Trusted
 Computing,&rdquo; meaning that companies can &ldquo;trust&rdquo; your
 computer to obey them instead of you. It enables network sites to tell
 which program you are running; if you change the program, or write
 your own, they will refuse to talk to you. Once again, freedom No. 1
 becomes a sham.
 </p>
 <p>
 Microsoft has a scheme, originally called Palladium, that enables an
 application program to &ldquo;seal&rdquo; data so that no other
 program can access it. If Disney distributes movies this way, you'll
 be unable to exercise your legal rights of fair use and de minimis
 use. If an application records your data this way, it will be the
 ultimate in vendor lock-in. This too destroys freedom No. 1; if
 modified versions of a program cannot access the same data, you can't
 really change the program to do what you wish. Something like
 Palladium is planned for a coming version of Windows.
 </p>
 <p>
 AACS, the &ldquo;Advanced Access Content System,&rdquo; promoted by
 Disney, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Sony, and others, aims to restrict use
 of HDTV recordings&mdash;and software&mdash;so they can't be used
 except as these companies permit. Sony was caught last year installing
 a &ldquo;rootkit&rdquo; into millions of people's computers, and not
 telling them how to remove it. Sony has learned its lesson: it will
 install the &ldquo;rootkit&rdquo; in your computer before you get it,
 and you won't be able to remove it.  This plan explicitly requires
 devices to be &ldquo;robust&rdquo;&mdash;meaning you cannot change
 them. Its implementors will surely want to include GPL-covered
 software, trampling freedom No. 1. This scheme should get
 &ldquo;AACSed,&rdquo; and <a
 href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140217075603/http://bluraysucks.com/">
 a boycott of HD DVD and Blu-ray has already been announced</a>.
 </p>
 <p>
 Allowing a few businesses to organize a scheme to deny our freedoms for
 their profit is a failure of government, but so far most of the world's
 governments, led by the U.S., have acted as paid accomplices rather than
 policemen for these schemes. The copyright industry has promulgated its
 peculiar ideas of right and wrong so vigorously that some readers may
 find it hard to entertain the idea that individual freedom can trump
 their profits.
 </p>
 
 <p>Facing these threats to our freedom, what should the free software
 community do? Some say we should give in and accept the distribution
 of our software in ways that don't allow modified versions to
 function, because this will make our software more popular. Some refer
 to free software as &ldquo;open source,&rdquo; that being the slogan
 of an amoral approach to the matter, which cites powerful and reliable
 software as the highest goals.  If we allow companies to use our
 software to restrict us, this &ldquo;open source DRM&rdquo; could help
 them restrict us more powerfully and reliably.  Those who wield the
 power could benefit by sharing and improving the source code of the
 software they use to do so. We too could read that source
 code&mdash;read it and weep, if we can't make a changed version
 run. For the goals of freedom and community&mdash;the goals of the
 free software movement&mdash;this concession would amount to failure.
 </p>
 <p>
 We developed the GNU operating system so that we could control our own
 computers, and cooperate freely in using them in freedom. To seek
 popularity for our software by ceding this freedom would defeat the
 purpose; at best, we might flatter our egos. Therefore we have designed
 version 3 of the GNU GPL to uphold the user's freedom to modify the
 source code and put modified versions to real use.
 </p>
 <p>
 The debate about the GPL v3 is part of a broader debate about DRM versus
 your rights. The motive for DRM schemes is to increase profits for those
 who impose them, but their profit is a side issue when millions of
 people's freedom is at stake; desire for profit, though not wrong in
 itself, cannot justify denying the public control over its technology.
 Defending freedom means thwarting DRM.
 </p>
 
 <div class="infobox extra" role="complementary">
 <p>First published by <cite>BusinessWeek Online</cite>.</p>
 </div>
 </div>
 
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 <p>Copyright &copy; 2006, 2021 Richard Stallman</p>
 
 <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
 href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
 Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
 
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 <p class="unprintable">Updated:
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 $Date: 2021/09/19 16:26:24 $
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