Comments on: Should I donate to EFF again?

By: John C. Randolph

John C. Randolph — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 00:01:04 +0000

Personally, I quit supporting the EFF a couple of years ago over the Hamidi case. The guy’s a spammer, and EFF was litigating to let him keep spamming.

-jcr

By: bbum

bbum — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 20:35:55 +0000

I don’t fault the EFF’s desire to make people aware of the situation, nor am I taking the position that losing rights that I do not use is acceptable. Last year, I quite happily sent EFF some $$$ specifically to continue their efforts to raise awareness and defend the rights that I have (but don’t use).

My complaint is that the EFF is taking a position that is somewhat dishonest. There are both factual issues and the presentation is such that it appears to be attempting to strike fear of issues that do not exist. As well, the EFF has a vocal/popular spokesperson in Cory that strikes me as taking a position that is about as consistently reasonable as your average fundamentalist preacher.

By: Nat

Nat — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 18:00:52 +0000

I think Cory’s got pronounced blowhard tendencies, and I think Apple’s iTMS DRM does a darn good job of splitting the baby, but the median case for DRM’s badness is entirely worthy of the EFF full court press.

Paradoxically, I’d be more concerned about DRM if I could point to other implementations, like Apple’s, that don’t make me want to vomit with rage. With more generally-reasonable implementations circulating, I think many more people would be getting accustomed to DRM in principle, that in the hands of less enlightened corporate masters can be turned right the fuck up to eleven at some arbitrary future date.

I’m not worried that Apple’s going to turn it up to eleven, either with iTunes music or “trusted computing”, but I don’t fault EFF in either case for making people aware of the possibility. On the contrary, I applaud them. Apple, meanwhile, has a strong case to make that they’re not screwing people, and plenty of marketing muscle with which to make it. They’ll be fine.

In this Republican age, “I don’t miss any of the rights that I’ve lost” is an indefensibly irresponsible position to take.

By: Charles Plater

Charles Plater — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 11:54:08 +0000

I couldn’t have said it better. This article really turned off in regards to the EFF. I really like some of the things they stand for, and I think DRM is useless in the big picture, but I’m glad to see the compromise, and I’m happy to use it until something better comes along. Unfortunately, I don’t think Corey will be happy until the labels make FLAC/ALAC/ files available at a cheap price.