Victor Roncea Blog

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SANFRANCISCO, California, USA — Wednesday, January 27, 2010 — As SteveJobs and Apple prepared to announce their new tablet device, activistsopposed to Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) from the groupDefective by Design were on hand to draw the media’s attention to theincreasing restrictions that Apple is placing on general purposecomputers. The group set up “Apple Restriction Zones” along theapproaches to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco,informing journalists of the rights they would have to give up to Applebefore proceeding inside.
DRM is used by Apple to restrict users’ freedom in a variety ofways, including blocking installation of software that comes fromanywhere except the official Application Store, and regulating everyuse of movies downloaded from iTunes. Apple furthermore claims thatcircumventing these restrictions is a criminal offense, even forpurposes that are permitted by copyright law.
Organizing the protest, Free Software Foundation (FSF) operationsmanager John Sullivan said, “Our Defective by Design campaign has asuccessful history of targeting Apple over its DRM policies. Weorganized actions and protests targeting iTunes music DRM outside Applestores, and under the pressure Steve Jobs dropped DRM on music. We’rehere today to send the same message about the other restrictions Appleis imposing on software, ebooks, and movies. If Jobs and Apple areactually committed to creativity, freedom, and individuality, theyshould prove it by eliminating the restrictions that make creativityand freedom illegal.”
The group is asking citizens to sign a petition calling on SteveJobs to remove DRM from Apple devices. The petition can be found at https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ipad
“Attention needs to be paid to the computing infrastructure oursociety is becoming dependent upon. This past year, we have seen howhuman rights and democracy protesters can have the technology they useturned against them by the corporations who supply the products andservices they rely on. Your computer should be yours to control. Byimposing such restrictions on users, Steve Jobs is building a legacythat endangers our freedom for his profits,” said FSF executivedirector Peter Brown.

Other critics of DRM have asserted that Apple is not responsible,and it is the publishers insisting on the restrictions. However, on theiPhone and its new tablet, Apple does not provide publishers any way toopt out of the restrictions — even free software and free cultureauthors who want to give legal permission for users to share theirworks.
“This is a huge step backward in the history of computing,” saidFSF’s Holmes Wilson, “If the first personal computers requiredpermission from the manufacturer for each new program or new feature,the history of computing would be as dismally totalitarian as themilieu in Apple’s famous superbowl ad.”

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promotingcomputer users’ right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computerprograms. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom)software — particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants –and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spreadawareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use ofsoftware, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an importantsource of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF’s work canbe made at https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

Media Contacts

John Sullivan
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
[email protected]

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