Check out this online and lame-ass petition in the form of a letter to Steve Jobs warning users about the dangers of iPad DRM:
Mr. Jobs,
DRM will give Apple and their corporate partners the power to disable features, block competing products (especially free software) censor news, and even delete books, videos, or news stories from users’ computers without notice– using the device’s “always on” network connection.
This past year, we have seen how human rights and democracy protestors can have the technology they use turned against them. By making a computer where every application is under total, centralized control, Apple is endangering freedom to increase profits.
Apple can say they will not abuse this power, but their record of App Store rejections and removals gives us no reason to trust them. The iPad’s unprecedented use of DRM to control all capabilities of a general purpose computer is a dangerous step backward for computing and for media distribution. We demand that Apple remove all DRM from its devices.
We demand? Who the hell do these people think they are? It’s a f’n tablet style computer. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. If you don’t like iTunes, use Amazon. End of story.
This is all so ridiculous that I almost wish I had enough time on my hands to come up with pointless and holier-than-thou petitions myself.
February 11th, 2010 at 12:06 am
I don’t agree. After the big success of the iPhone, it is now the second platform thet has complete DRM/ control about apps via AppStore. All apps (unlike on your ordinary computer) are censored (yes, I and lots of developers call it like that). If this becomes normal (and I don’t talk only about Apple) we all will have a problem.
It is – together with “cloud computing” (where Apple is allready placed) – the biggest cut on freedom and the next big step on control.
I’m not talking about us, who have their own websites, make jailbreaks and ‘don’t have to worry’. But if the masses, who use their computer with less knowledge about it, become the majority, also we will have a problem.