Category Archives: DRM

International Day Against DRM

Posted on May 4, 2012 by ward

May 4th is the International Day Against DRM. To celebrate, get 50% off all e-books at oreilly.com – today only! Use the code DRMFREE.

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Intel selling crippled CPUs

Posted on September 21, 2010 by ward

Via boingboing.net: Intel is now selling crippled CPUs that can be ‘upgraded’ through the purchase of scratch cards (!) with a code. That code can be entered in the BIOS of the computer, thus unlocking additional horsepower. I’m running out … Continue reading →

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finally: SD/SDHC cards without DRM

Posted on January 23, 2009 by ward

Super Talent Technology has a range of SD and

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from an alternate universe

Posted on January 22, 2009 by ward

Microsoft has launched a mobile music service, crippled with DRM. In 2009. While almost all music is available for digital download without DRM, legally, from the likes of Amazon or iTunes. There are some baffling quotes in this article. It’s … Continue reading →

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the idiocy of region encoding

Posted on January 11, 2009 by ward

I don’t own many DVDs, but at least some of the Flemish ones that I do have are not region encoded. But somewhere, someone decided that it would be a good idea to put region encoding (zone 2, Europe) on … Continue reading →

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zuneral: DRM is dead!

Posted on May 25, 2008 by ward

DRM died on April 29th, 2008 when Microsoft announced it would be shutting down its ‘Plays for sure’ DRM validation servers on August 31st, 2008. All DRM’d music bought under the ‘Plays for sure’ system will become permanently tethered to … Continue reading →

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and audio books are following suit

Posted on March 3, 2008 by ward

The New York Times is reporting that several major book publishers are starting to do away with DRM on their audio books. Wonderful news, indeed.

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and that’s four

Posted on January 4, 2008 by ward

Sony/BMG has finally announced it is going to drop DRM for at least part of its catalogue. Original source: Businessweek. They were the last holdout among the four big labels. That’s it for music, now on to video

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Steve Jobs was almost right

Posted on December 28, 2007 by ward

When Apple launched DRM-free music on the iTunes music store, Jobs predicted that by the end of the year, all labels would be selling music in an unencumbered format (on the iTunes music store). Well, Warner has joined the MP3-selling … Continue reading →

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the problem with the kindle

Posted on December 4, 2007 by ward

Mark Pilgrim has a really nice writeup on the problems with DRM and the Amazon Kindle in particular, written out as a play in 6 acts. He references RMS’s Right to read, as well as George Orwell’s 1984.

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