> Wrong. People are free to contract away their legal rights. Ask any first year law student that has > suffered through contracts class. In fact the law enforces people making dumb choices. It gives > them a break when they are duped or relying on misrepresentations, but a bad choice is still > a binding one.
Actually, you're wrong (in most countries).
Almost every country has some kind of buyers rights association (in Australia it's the ACCC). This means that a monitor with a dead pixel is faulty. Period. It doesn't matter if the manufacturer states otherwise. The laws are there to protect consumers and we desperately need them.
Norway also has strong laws to protect consumers (been reading the fairly recent iTunes Store battle there?).
France as well. CDs with crippling copy protection are deemed faulty (ie. can be returned with no questions asked). While we're on it, pretty much all CD copy protection breaks the Red Book standard, meaning they're not really "Compact Audio Discs", they're just data CDs that sometimes work like audio CDs if you're lucky.
Law and fair use should be determined by governments, not multi-national companies with other agendas. That's a serious conflict of interest that will always be a recipe for disaster.
Also... to those saying that the DRM protects the artists and stops people from spreading the files over the net... surely you're not that naive? I can download ANYTHING I want on the net, but I actually choose to purchase from iTunes (400 songs so far and rising fast!). I like it. I think Apple have actually done a great job in creating something that's a very fair middle ground.
Josh summed it up perfectly.
> DRM is paying for a limited license to something that somebody else tells you how many times you > can use, how often you can use it, what you can do with it, and most importantly, what you CAN'T. > Since it's proprietary, if a company changes their technology they don't have to make the old stuff > compatible and can force you to buy it all again (see PlaysForSure and Zune)... ...DRM's only > purpose is brand lock-in.
And finally, don't blame Apple, blame almost everyone involved. The content owners, the online stores and the government bodies that let them get away with it.
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> Wrong. People are free to contract away their legal rights. Ask any first year law student that has
> suffered through contracts class. In fact the law enforces people making dumb choices. It gives
> them a break when they are duped or relying on misrepresentations, but a bad choice is still
> a binding one.
Actually, you're wrong (in most countries).
Almost every country has some kind of buyers rights association (in Australia it's the ACCC). This means that a monitor with a dead pixel is faulty. Period. It doesn't matter if the manufacturer states otherwise. The laws are there to protect consumers and we desperately need them.
Norway also has strong laws to protect consumers (been reading the fairly recent iTunes Store battle there?).
France as well. CDs with crippling copy protection are deemed faulty (ie. can be returned with no questions asked). While we're on it, pretty much all CD copy protection breaks the Red Book standard, meaning they're not really "Compact Audio Discs", they're just data CDs that sometimes work like audio CDs if you're lucky.
Law and fair use should be determined by governments, not multi-national companies with other agendas. That's a serious conflict of interest that will always be a recipe for disaster.
Also... to those saying that the DRM protects the artists and stops people from spreading the files over the net... surely you're not that naive? I can download ANYTHING I want on the net, but I actually choose to purchase from iTunes (400 songs so far and rising fast!). I like it. I think Apple have actually done a great job in creating something that's a very fair middle ground.
Josh summed it up perfectly.
> DRM is paying for a limited license to something that somebody else tells you how many times you
> can use, how often you can use it, what you can do with it, and most importantly, what you CAN'T.
> Since it's proprietary, if a company changes their technology they don't have to make the old stuff
> compatible and can force you to buy it all again (see PlaysForSure and Zune)... ...DRM's only
> purpose is brand lock-in.
And finally, don't blame Apple, blame almost everyone involved. The content owners, the online stores and the government bodies that let them get away with it.