chrispoole.com

I’m sure many people by now have read about Google deciding to implement their own version of DRM software. For those not even aware of what DRM even is, it officially stands for Digital Rights Management. But really, it stands for Digital Restrictions Management. Companies that use this (music from Apple’s iTunes Music Store, many of the other online music stores, several Microsoft products), try to make out that its a good thing, and it’s helping its users. In reality, they are putting restrictions on what we can do with our own music. It’s the equivalent of Ford or BMW putting a restriction on our cars that prevents us from travelling above 30 mph. It’s not good; what gives some people at some company the right to restrict other peoples’ lives?

As Peter Samson once said,

Information wants to be free.

And DRM is about as far away as this as possible. I struggle to see how Google can still claim to “do no evil”.

On a tangent to this however, is a blog entry about why Apple wants free music. And I think he’s pretty much completely right.