Category Archives: Digital Rights

Infringement is not stealing

Posted on July 3, 2010 by Joe Brockmeier

A friend of mine, and respected colleague, has written a piece over on LinuxToday that bears mentioning: Editor’s Note: Copying is Stealing. Though I agree with the spirit of the piece, I have to take issue with the conflation of … Continue reading →

Posted in Creative Commons, Digital Rights, Movies, Music, Politics, Rant | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

WebM Poised to Bring Open Video to the Masses

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Joe Brockmeier

Google I/O brought a lot of interesting developments, but one of the most interesting for Linux users might be the announcement of WebM. Finally, Linux will be a first-class platform for media. WebM isn’t the first effort to bring open … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Digital Rights, Open Source, openSUSE | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Two weeks with iPad

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Joe Brockmeier

It’s been a couple of weeks with the iPad so I thought I’d post a follow-up here and report on how it’s going with the pad ‘o evil. Sometimes the shiny wears off a new gadget fast, and sometimes you … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Rights, Front Page, Linux, Writing, openSUSE | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

SourceForge Removes “Blanket” Block

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Joe Brockmeier

After just a few weeks, SourceForge has backed off its policy of imposing a blanket ban on all users trying to access the site from countries on the U.S. “banned” list. Instead, it announced on Sunday that it’s putting the … Continue reading →

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Amazon vs. Macmillan: Authors lose, physical books win

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Joe Brockmeier

Amazon has pulled books from publisher Macmillan off of its virtual “shelves” because the publisher has told Amazon it wants to increase its ebook prices and split royalties 70/30. Amazon said publicly that it would (eventually) agree to Macmillan’s terms, … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Digital Rights, Front Page | 1 Comment

Richard Stallman on GPL Exceptions

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Joe Brockmeier

Richard Stallman raised more than a few eyebrows when he signed the letter objecting to the MySQL purchase. Endorsing, or seeming to endorse, the practice of selling proprietary exceptions to GPL’ed software seemed entirely out of character with Stallman’s comments … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Digital Rights, Legal, Linux, Open Source | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

DRM in Windows Vista

Posted on February 15, 2007 by Joe Brockmeier

It probably won’t surprise blog readers that I did not run out and buy Windows Vista at the first available opportunity when it was released recently. (Nor did I run out for it at the second, third, fourth, or any … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Rights, Legal | Leave a comment