[cc-br] Torvalds versus GPLv3 DRM restrictions

Omar Kaminski kaminski at fgv.br
Fri Feb 3 23:38:52 EST 2006


http://trends.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/02/02/1636216

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Torvalds versus GPLv3 DRM restrictions
Thursday February 02, 2006 (06:00 PM GMT)

Yesterday, Tovalds offered his opinion as to where the battle over DRM 
should take place:

"I would suggest that anybody who wants to fight DRM practices seriously 
look at the equivalent angle. If you create interesting content, you can 
forbid that _content_ to ever be encrypted or limited.

In other words, I personally think that the anti-DRM clause is much more 
sensible in the context of the Creative Commons licenses, than in software 
licenses. If you create valuable and useful content that other people want 
to be able to use (catchy tunes, funny animation, good icons), I would 
suggest you protect that _content_ by saying that it cannot be used in any 
content-protection schemes.

Afaik, all the Creative Commons licenses already require that you can't use 
technological measures to restrict the rights you give with the CC licenses. 
The "Share Alike" license in particular requires all work based on it to 
also be shared alike, ie it has the "GPL feel" to it.

If enough interesting content is licensed that way, DRM eventually becomes 
marginalized. Yes, it takes decades, but that's really no different at all 
from how the GPL works. The GPL has taken decades, and it hasn't 
"marginalized" commercial proprietary software yet, but it's gotten to the 
point where fewer people at least _worry_ about it.

As long as you expect Disney to feed your brain and just sit there on your 
couch, Disney & co will always be able to control the content you see. DRM 
is the smallest part of it - the crap we see and hear every day (regardless 
of any protection) is a much bigger issue.

The GPL already requires source code (ie non-protected content). So the GPL 
already _does_ have an anti-DRM clause as far as the _software_ is 
concerned. If you want to fight DRM on non-software fronts, you need to 
create non-software content, and fight it _there_.

I realize that programmers are bad at content creation. So many programmers 
feel that they can't fight DRM that way. Tough. Spread the word instead. 
Don't try to fight DRM the wrong way." (...) 




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